


With A Bit Of Luck

by Krasimer



Series: The Longest Roads Stretch Away [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Brother Uchiha Itachi, Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Orochimaru (Naruto), Good Kisame, Good Uchiha Itachi, Itachi is an undercover spy, Kisame is an undercover spy, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Protective Uchiha Itachi, Spies & Secret Agents, Uchiha Itachi Being a Good Brother, Uchiha Itachi Lives, on the Akatsuki, they are gathering information
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-09-23 00:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17070500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: There is a reason for all things -- Everything has a purpose.It just so happens that some things can be changed.Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame are partners in more than one way. When it comes to working together, when it comes to knowing how the other thinks, how they fight.What if they were both hiding something bigger?(The AU of Kisame and Itachi both being undercover spies for their village, gathering information on the criminals of the world.)





	1. The Very Beginning

His hands were covered in blood.

That was the first thing he was really aware of, after the mission he’d been disavowed on. He and the others of his team had been told that, if they were caught, they’d be branded traitors. Their leader had been a good man on the surface, but the façade scraped away to reveal something less than kind.

They had always been a team, had always gotten the work done together.

When they had been told of their newest mission, there had been hesitance. Oh, gods, there had been some hesitance. A few of the members of their team had been panicked at the thought of who they were supposed to dispose of. He hadn’t been. He had, instead, been one of the ones reassuring and convincing.

They had been told that, if they were caught, there would be no safe harbor for them.

Say goodbye to your loved ones now, in whatever form that took.

Most of them hadn’t been too long in that, had barely any people to return to and miss them. Some of them, like him, had lost their families long ago and were ready to go the moment they had been told of the mission.

The mission hadn’t gone well.

Maybe it had been old intel, maybe it had been a traitor, maybe it had been the target already knowing they were coming – whatever it had been, the mission had gone _wrong_.

His hands were covered in blood.

They had caught one of the younger ones, one of the last brought into the team. He’d had to kill the man—the boy—to keep the rest of them able to escape cleanly. They lost a total of three members of their team.

Their mission had been accomplished, but it had left them branded as traitors, as assassins, as those who would never be welcomed home again.

Standing in the middle of the woods, separated from the others (they would never be able to contact each other again, not so long as they were still attached to their village), he pulled out a small knife and dug the tip of it into the symbol for his village, dragging it across the metal again and again, until the line through the symbol was deep and incapable of being buffed out.

Of being taken back.

He had done what he needed to do, had done what was necessary.

His people had been starting to suffer from the under-the-table dealings their leader had been throwing himself into. He had done what he had always done, what his entire team had always done. They had protected their people, even at the risk, the threat, of never being able to go home again.

The others would, hopefully, be alright. They would find new missions, new homes, new identities. Sign up with a new team.

His hands were still covered in blood.

He knelt next to the stream he’d stumbled across and dipped his hands below the surface of the water, scrubbing until the blood washed off. It was still under his nails, but that was as good as it was going to get without the assistance of a brush and some soap. He would have time for that later, he was still within twenty miles of his village.

Not his village.

Not anymore.

He would have to get used to a new reality, the new truth of his existence. He could never go home again, would never see the friends he had grown up with, the people he had existed alongside. His neighbors would be curious, of course, until they heard the news.

He stood up slowly, hefting his pack up higher on his shoulder and slinging his sword across his back. This was it, no turning back. The chance to turn back had been before he’d killed the kage of his village. Maybe it had even been further back than that, back before he’d been chosen as one of the elite. Or maybe he’d never even had the choice, the chance to turn back. Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand back through his hair, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

He was an exile now, never to be welcomed back home again.

Hoshigaki Kisame closed his eyes for a moment as he left his former home behind. When the trees grew thicker, closer together, he opened them again.

Looking back wasn’t an option, but he still said a silent goodbye to his home as he walked.


	2. To Tell It Honestly

He chose the Akatsuki.

Maybe it was more accurate to say that they chose him, but he had been accepted as a member of a team that was full of nothing so much as assassins, psychopaths, and those who would kill for pleasure or for money.

It made him a little nervous, honestly.

Kisame sat in his new quarters, tending to his weapons. Making sure the blades were sharp and his sword was wrapped well enough to keep it safe. There was talk, among the others, of immortals and recruitment. A planned new arrival, soon enough. The team he had found himself on seemed to be made of the worst nightmares of the world. His new partner, Kakuzu, had been quiet but he could tell the other man was filled with a rage that reached to the very depths of him.

Upon meeting him, he had made a vow to never anger him enough to see that rage released.

From what he could tell, there were already two somewhat immortal beings on the team. Kakuzu, of course he was, why wouldn’t he be, and a man named Sasori. Kisame hadn’t seen Sasori yet, had only seen the puppet he rode around in, but that had been enough to tell that the man was just as insane as the rest. He had murdered his way through life, gleefully building up his talents and powers.

Orochimaru had been something of a surprise.

He’d heard a little of the man, with his renown as one of the Sannin, and he had thought that someone like that would remain loyal to their village. He should have known better, he’d been around long enough to know that everyone had a price.

Their leader was still a mystery, as was the woman he’d seen when he’d first arrived.

Kisame tucked the small notebook he was slowly filling with information on the Akatsuki into the pocket inside his shirt, meant for carrying papers. He and the rest of his first team had commissioned their uniforms with pockets in the linings, invisible unless you knew they were there. The Akatsuki seemed much more the ‘ _no honor among thieves’_ sort. They were expected to work together but he knew that Kakuzu at least would ditch him the first moment he seemed useless.

He would just have to be careful not to be caught.

 

The immortal was an interesting man.

His name was Hidan, no last name attached to him, and his village was one Kisame only barely recognized. He carried a mutated-looking scythe as a weapon, kind of a poor choice as far as Kisame was aware. Scythes tended to be a little harder to manage, slower on the rebound.

With Hidan’s recruitment, there was a shift in the system.

Sasori and Orochimaru were partners, as they had been, but Kakuzu and Kisame were not anymore. The somewhat-temperamental man had been paired with Hidan.

It was possible that it was in retaliation for him trying to take Kisame’s head off that one time, but no one was sure. Hidan seemed to be something of a punishment for Kakuzu, driving the man absolutely insane at times. When Kakuzu retaliated, however, Hidan would just laugh his injuries off and _sew his arm back on_. Kisame had seen a lot, had seen leaders fall to his weapons, had killed many people and run into many more with powers he had never seen, but an actual, honest-to-gods immortal?

That was a new one for him.

 

And then there was another new one.

Kisame was absolutely not sure what the hell to make of Zetsu. The man appeared to be a plant of some kind, an experiment gone wrong perhaps. The way his eyes tracked Kisame around the room was shiver-inducing, a quiet sort of horror about what would happen to him if he angered the man or got in his way.

He stopped taking his notes when he was anywhere near the base.

There was a risk in it, now, too much of a risk. If he wanted to not be found out as a spy of sorts, if he wanted to keep himself alive, then he needed to keep an even lower profile than before. Zetsu was a danger, but he could and would find a way to work around it.

Even if it meant that this particular mission would take longer, he would find a way to work around the threat.

 

And then—

 

Itachi.

He couldn’t use the word ‘ _man’_ , not even in his own mind. Uchiha Itachi was all of fourteen years old, to be Kisame’s new partner, and currently sitting on the bed on his side of the room. He had walked in while Kisame was in the corner, had apparently not seen him, and dropped to the bed, placing his face in his hands.

That was a look Kisame recognized.

That was a look Kisame had _worn_.

The hunched shoulders and the deep breaths and the way his fingers tightened in his hairline—that was panic. Kisame hadn’t panicked about much in his life, most of it had been contained to childhood before he’d grown out of panicking about missions, but he still knew that look.

That was the, ‘ _How did I get here?’_ look.

The, ‘ _panicked about criminals’_ look.

That was the look of a man who had entered into a criminal organization to achieve a specific goal. The boy was wearing it in a way that made Kisame panic as well – What had Itachi done to gain recognition and infamy enough to join the Akatsuki?

Just as he moved to walk over to him, the boy’s head snapped up, eyes pinned on him like a pair of knives aiming to kill him.

Kisame held up his hands in surrender, noticing the bright red color.

Itachi studied him for a moment, then nodded and put the kunai Kisame hadn’t even noticed back into the pouch on his thigh. “You must be Kisame,” he said, matter-of-fact and quiet. Even with how soft he said it, his voice still carried strength enough to cow a weaker person. Kisame knew, at that moment, that the boy was someone to never underestimate.

He had a feeling that those who did had not survived.

“I am,” he crossed his arms over his chest, grinning. “You must be the Uchiha.”

“One of the last, now,” Itachi raised his chin, as dignified as possible. “I made certain of it.”

“Ah, familial genocide,” Kisame nodded, dropping down to sit on his own bed. “What’d they do?” he watched as Itachi looked down at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. Fuck, but he looked like a goddamn _child_ still. “C’mon kid, they had to have done something.”

Itachi’s eyes flashed and Kisame made a mental note of it: he didn’t like being reminded of his age.

“They got in my way,” he said it with enough bluster in his almost-emotionless voice that Kisame might have believed him if he hadn’t known better. “I would suggest you not do the same.”

“You could probably kill me with those fancy eyes of yours,” Kisame arched a brow, leaning his weight back on his hands. “And, who knows, you might actually get that done.” He grinned again, watching Itachi’s gaze drop to his teeth. “But I think we both know you’re lying, Uchiha. The way you’re holding yourself, the jumping to your own defense when you realized you’d missed seeing me in the corner, the dropping of your defense when you’re alone in the first place…It tells me something specific about you.”

“Oh?” Itachi raised an eyebrow right back. “And what is that?”

Damn, the kid was a good liar. Kisame would just have to teach him how to be a better one.

“It tells me you’re afraid of being found out for something.” Kisame huffed out a laugh when Itachi winced. “It tells me you’re afraid of something that could get you killed being found out.”

“Is that all?”

Kisame debated it for a second, then shook his head. “We both already know you could kill me if I found out the wrong thing,” he hedged carefully. “But I’m guessing you didn’t just up and kill your entire extended clan because they made you angry. You’re not the type for it.” He sighed and popped his neck. “I could believe it if Hidan said it, or if Kakuzu confessed to something like that.” Leaning forward again, Kisame watched the minor twitches in Itachi’s face. “But you? Not a chance.”

Itachi mirrored him, leaving only a few feet between them. Either one of them could leap forward and kill the other.

Kisame was just going to trust his instincts and hope that he wasn’t reading things wrong.

It had served him well, thus far.

“I would guess,” he spoke again before Itachi could even open his mouth. “That you killed them because you were ordered to. You killed them because there was some dirty dealing going on behind the scenes, the kind of dealings that put the lives of everyone at risk.”

For a moment, Itachi looked like he had stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped being alive.

And then, like it was being forced out of him, his breath escaped in a rush. “How would you guess something like that?”

With something softer than his usual grin, he shrugged. “I know what being caught following orders causes. I know the expressions you wear, the way you walk afterwards, the way you have to run to avoid being caught. I know what it means to do the thing you can’t not do.” He met Itachi’s eyes, stared deep into the red. “I know what it’s like to have to kill someone everyone else thought was kind, a bastion of goodness.”

Itachi started breathing again, the first few coming out almost as pants. The sheer _relief_ on his face was almost enough to break Kisame’s heart. “I have heard about you,” Itachi spoke up after a few minutes of deep breaths. “Of the way you assassinated the leader of your village. I had thought it was a criminal act, but it wasn’t, was it? You acted on orders, killed him because he was doing wrongful things, harmful things, in a way that no one else had caught on to yet.”

“Yeah,” Kisame nodded. “I had to leave home and never look back.”

His shoulders slumping down, Itachi actually smiled at him. “So what are you doing here?”

“A missing-nin with a history of assassinating a Kage and nowhere else to go without alerting some very…” he paused, thinking of the right words. “Angry and powerful people. Not much choice, might as well gather information and figure out what is going on.”

He could tell that Itachi still had his guard up, but that the words settled something in him.

The kid wasn’t an idiot, good.

Itachi took a deep breath and let it out slowly, seeming to be reining in his panic. When he stopped, his face was perfectly placid, nothing given away in his expression. Kisame could appreciate that.

They were two spies in the midst of a group of criminals, people who would attempt to kill them if given a reason.

They would just have to keep an eye on each other’s backs.

 

Orochimaru was a problem until he wasn’t, anymore.

They snakelike man had been getting too close, had been found in Kisame and Itachi’s room a few too many times. He had been snooping through things, excusing it with waiting for either of them to get in and then discussing some minor thing that could have waited.

It made both of them nervous.

Itachi, fifteen and still too old for the body he had, was the one to suggest a different method of keeping their notes hidden, their reports carefully crafted to keep their secrets. Orochimaru had gotten too close, had almost found them out.

But he was a problem until he wasn’t a problem.

He’d snuck into their things, spied on them when he could, pressed himself into the spaces they left behind and tried to figure them out. Kisame had been close to running the bastard through with his sword when suddenly—

Orochimaru wasn’t a problem anymore.

He’d been run out of the Akatsuki, had attacked Itachi with seemingly no provocation. Sasori and Kakuzu had been the ones closer to him at the time, had backed him up. Instead of telling them what he might have found, Orochimaru had chosen to run. Sasori and Kakuzu had split the difference, the puppet master going after his partner and Kakuzu dragging Itachi back to base.

Itachi, who had come back to base with blood dripping down his cheek and an anger in his eyes that had startled even Kisame.

Kakuzu had given him a _look_ and had left the younger with him. He didn’t have time to patch him up, he had another mission to get to, but Kisame took Itachi from him with a nod. He had settled the Uchiha on his own bed and knelt in front of him and dabbed the blood from his face. He used small, soft touches he had never had a chance to get used to before.

He waited until Itachi took a shuddering breath, his glare breaking down eventually, until his face crumpled into a relieved sag and he curled over his lap. “He _knows_ ,” Itachi hissed the words.

“Fuck,” Kisame spat the word out, feeling the venom of it on his tongue.

“He was trying to blackmail me, trying to get me to become his next vessel,” Itachi shook, his entire body trembling. “Because he _knew_ and he thought he could get me to give in. He wants the Sharingan, wants the abilities my family’s blood carries,” he leaned into Kisame’s hand when he put one on his back.

“Did he manage to tell them?” Kisame crouched down even further, meeting Itachi’s eyes. “Are you still safe here?”

In that moment, he couldn’t be bothered to give a single solitary fuck about his own safety in remaining with the Akatsuki. Itachi had, within the two years of them working together, become more important to him than his own existence. The boy was brilliant, deadly as he wanted to be, and decidedly unassuming until threatened.

“No,” Itachi put his own hand on the back of Kisame’s, his fingers clenching until his knuckles were white. “I am safe. By the time they arrived, he was ranting about me being a perfect vessel, about how useful my body would be for him.”

“So he just looked unhinged,” Kisame turned his hand over and held onto Itachi’s for a few minutes, stroking his thumb over the back of his hand. They had gotten used to giving each other small comforts, moments of safety within an organization that would have their heads for decoration if they were found out. “Good. Better for him to seem insane than for you to be exposed.” He pulled his hand away, watching Itachi fold both of his in his lap.

They would be okay, they would have to be.

 

The new member of the Akatsuki was…

Interesting.

To say the least.

He was partnered with Sasori, their leader telling them there was no sense in separating the working teams. Hidan and Kakuzu were stuck with each other until the end of time, it seemed, because they couldn’t kill each other. Kisame and Itachi were left alone because Kisame could be counted on as a handler for Itachi at his worst and Itachi could calm Kisame’s bloodlust.

That was the impression they gave the others and that was how it was going to stay for their safety.

Zetsu was, under no circumstances, allowed to have a partner. Not unless they found another immortal or someone that knew how to navigate the minefield of his emotional states.

Sasori’s new partner was roughly the same age as Itachi, already gaining infamy for his _colorful_ way of ending lives. He looked thin, half-starved, and the mouths in his palms were grinning as he tracked Kisame’s movement around the room with the single eye that stared out at the world. The other was hidden under the thick fall of blonde hair, potentially not even an eye anymore.

There was madness in his gaze and Kisame could see it, knew it just as well as he knew his own hands.

That was the same madness that had hit Zabuza in the middle of a battle, the sort of bloodlust that hit the hardest and stayed the longest. The new kid, Deidara, would probably keep fighting even after bits of himself were torn off.

It had been called ‘ _berserk rage’_ in Kisame’s home village.

There was something terrifying about a small man, who only went up to his armpit, having that same look to him. The fact that he and Itachi had, immediately, gotten off to a rocky start only made it worse. Inside of the shorter man was a nightmare given flesh and Kisame could feel it rising to the surface. The recruitment of Deidara had been messy and dangerous, exhausting for Itachi and it had given Deidara’s anger a target.

So far, however, Sasori seemed capable of keeping him somewhat in line.

Small favors, as the saying went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in this AU, Deidara reminds Kisame a little too much of Zabuza. 
> 
> Not A Good Thing.


	3. Stresses Of The Job

Kisame watched Itachi sleeping.

It was a habit he had picked up when they weren’t on missions that had carried over: keep his eye on the kid to make sure he would get enough rest, he had a weapon incapable of being separated from him if they should be captured. He needed enough rest to make certain it would work when he needed it to.

The kid – young man, now – was sleeping almost peacefully. There was a wrinkle between his eyebrows as he slept, but other than that, he looked at peace.

He was nineteen, now.

That was a number that worried Kisame. Old enough to get into ‘Adult’ venues, old enough to get noticed by someone in them. It was a holdover from spending the last four years of his life watching Itachi’s back, he was sure. He had seen the boy grow up, was just over a decade older than him. There was no fatherly instinct to be seen, but there was enough of a remnant of a memory to be wary about his safety.

His hands had been covered in blood, after all.

The dead often screamed at him, in his dreams, and he never wanted Itachi to join them. Those he couldn’t save, those he’d tried to save and failed, those he had led to their deaths…

Itachi did not belong there.

There were other reasons nagging at him, but he couldn’t put them into words just yet. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he knew there was something else.

With a sip of a flask he carried, he toasted the air, forcing himself to think about something else.

Like the fact that news of a teammate’s death had finally reached him. Zabuza had, apparently, been killed a handful of years back, along with the young man he’d taken on as a sort of apprentice. Itachi’s little brother would have been about twelve, maybe thirteen. Itachi himself would have been about sixteen, roughly around the time Orochimaru had attacked.

But Zabuza, one of the more insane members of his team. Dead. The man whose Berserker style of fighting had scared off several opponents when they had been younger. Who had been called a demon, literally a demon.

Zabuza was _dead_.

Distantly, Kisame wondered if there was a ticking clock with the time of his death. It had to be coming soon, he was in a high-risk position, a life full of danger and chaos. He had to pretend to be almost contrary to his personality, had to pretend to be a dumb thug at times, had to pretend, had to _pretend._

Had to pretend until he felt sick with it.

Some of the others of Akatsuki had to have started noticing the inconsistencies by now. He did his best to lay out a believable story for them to see, a front they wouldn’t look past. A brute with a habit of noticing details no one else did, a bloodthirsty lug who wouldn’t think twice about slaughtering an entire village if he had to.

That was the story.

If he’d been able, he might have nudged the Akatsuki leader towards recruiting some of the other swordsmen. He knew for a fact that he’d been the first one found, the first one offered the job. It might have been any of the others.

Zabuza would have been fantastic in the role. He always had liked playing up backstories, blending in by matching rather than standing out by wearing a uniform and a mask. The kid he had picked up, according to the stories, had been dressed as one of the ones who retrieved betrayers. Zabuza had probably offered forth the cover story, to save both their hides should it become necessary. It was rather clever, actually – a hunter-nin would be as far from a suspect as possible.

“I can hear you thinking,” Itachi’s voice was soft, barely able to be heard above the rustle of his cloak. “What has your attention?”

That had been one of the most wonderful things about Itachi and him keeping each other’s secrets: Itachi hadn’t disregarded his opinion as stupid merely because he was big and carried Samehada. He always asked Kisame for his view of a situation, for what he was thinking, for anything that might be pertinent.

“The death of an old friend,” Kisame looked at him, smiling at the image of Itachi, rumpled from sleeping curled up in his cloak, leaned against a tree.

He was, Kisame was sure, the only person to ever see Itachi with his guard so far down.

“What happened to him?” Itachi covered his mouth, yawning as politely as he could. For what he had done in his life, he was a strange opposition to the image he portrayed himself as. A pacifist, for one, who seemed to care so much about other peoples’ opinions that he would rather slit his own throat than be rude to someone he cared for.

“According to the Anbu I heard talking about it, off-duty?” Kisame capped his flask again, sticking it in his pocket. “Your little brother’s team had a hand in his death, but he took down a corrupt man who had put himself in power through threats, blackmail, and terrorizing the people of the village. A couple of years ago, actually.”

Itachi frowned, sitting up completely and tucking his arms back into his cloak sleeves. “How long is a couple?”

“About…” Kisame did the math in his head again. “Your brother would have been twelve, maybe thirteen?”

“Ah.” Itachi’s shoulders went stiff like they did whenever he thought about Orochimaru. “I see.” He ran a hand through his hair, his gaze drifting off to the side as he slipped back into his own thoughts.

Konoha had, recently, announced the Chuunin exams. That was part of why they were traveling the way they were. Sasuke and his team were supposed to be taking part in them, this time. Sasuke, still fourteen years old, heading towards fifteen, was going to be exposed to whatever plan Orochimaru might concoct.

Itachi had, quietly and only when alone with Kisame, panicked about the idea.

He had chosen to spare Sasuke specifically, had essentially made a deal with a demon to ensure his survival. If Orochimaru got his hands on the youngest surviving Uchiha, that deal and all those deaths would have meant nothing. The years he had spent on the Akatsuki’s leash, pressing forward despite his worries and following orders on missions, all of it would mean nothing if Orochimaru got his hands on Sasuke.

They had been each other’s only friends, growing up. Itachi refused to let anything happen to his little brother if he could prevent it.

As far as cover stories went, they had been about to try to bullshit their leader when they’d been handed a mission in Konoha. It had been passed to them because Itachi had once lived there and knew how to navigate it.

The Uzumaki kid, Itachi had explained. The fourth Hokage’s son.

He’d been given a shit lot in life and Itachi had always tried his best to be kind to him when they’d met. Once he and Sasuke had been put on a team together, Itachi’s protective nature had simply extended that little bit further. The girl on the team, too, but she was less often mentioned, less often targeted.

The last Uchiha loyal to Konoha and the human vessel for the demon Kyuubi.

If anyone were to collect a bounty on them, they would be fairly rich as a result. Itachi had made it his mission to keep that from happening and, as with so many other things, it had become Kisame’s mission as well.

“We will have to make our way in quietly,” Itachi muttered as he stood, slinging his bag of supplies over his shoulder. Kisame stood as well, stretching his spine before following after him at a slow enough pace to not pass by him. “There is a gate on one side of the village that should be unguarded for a time. It leads into the lesser known parts of Konoha, allowing us to get inside without being noticed too much.”

“When we get there, we should also take off our cloaks,” Kisame nodded, considering the idea. “It will look a little odd, but perhaps not as odd as two members of Akatsuki arriving at the gates of the village.”

Itachi nodded and walked a little closer to him, both of them falling into silence.

 

The village, when they arrived, appeared to be all ready for the Chuunin exams.

Itachi peered through the trees as he studied the place that had once been his home. Kisame continued to watch him, worried for how nervous he seemed. It only made sense, the village of Konohakagure had been where he’d spent what little childhood he’d had, of course he was nervous about going back. His little brother was still here, taking an exam that Itachi knew firsthand was dangerous and Sasuke might not be prepared for it. The chatter about Sasuke had been informative, Itachi’s crows occasionally sent out to keep an eye on his little brother.

The kid cared so much for what remained of his family.

When they had still been learning to trust each other, Itachi had actually broken down and confided in him that Sasuke had been spared because he’d chosen him to be the only other survivor. The choice had been between the corrupt family or Sasuke and Itachi had chosen his little brother.

“They’re in the forest,” Itachi came as close to a snarl as Kisame had ever seen, his mouth twisted angrily, lips pressed into a thin line. His Sharingan was active, too, so he’d probably seen someone saying something. Kisame’s theory was proven correct a few seconds later. “Those people down there, they’re talking about the second stage of the exams being today. Second stage means the forest of Death, this time,” his hands trembled as he shook his head.

Kisame took his hands in his own, glancing around and kneeling down to be closer to Itachi’s height. “He’s your little brother,” he shrugged. “He’s got to be—”

“…Kisame?”

Without answering him, Kisame turned his head to the right, towards where he could see the forest off in the distance. He waited, hands clenching around Itachi’s as he waited for what he’d felt to come again: the flash and flicker of a familiar chakra. “We need to get over there _now_ ,” he stood back up, tugging Itachi along with him. Their cloaks were somewhere in the trees they had come out of, Itachi’s hair pulled up into a braided bun on the top of his head and his bag slung around his torso.

Basic disguise, not as good as an illusion, but paired with a chakra dampening jutsu.

“Kisam—”

“Orochimaru is _here_ ,” Kisame spat the words over his shoulder. “What was your thinking about him going after your brother?”

Like a switch had been flipped, Itachi was suddenly in the lead, dragging Kisame by their still-connected hands. Kisame followed along without complaint: as it had always been, Itachi’s causes had become his own. He had never spoken to Sasuke, never exchanged so much as a word with him, but he felt a surge of angry protectiveness rise in his chest.

Simply because _Itachi_ wanted his little brother safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more insight -- things are going to kick off very soon.


	4. Everything In A Moment

The forest was remarkably easy to slip into.

Unnoticed by anyone, they dropped through a hole in the defenses and started moving through the trees. Kisame could only watch as Itachi moved ahead of him, stopping a good distance in and closing his eyes.

“Finding his signature?” he glanced around, seeing trees that were bigger around than he was tall, covered in scars and splatters of what looked to be blood. This was obviously where the Chuunin exams had happened again and again. Itachi nodded and put a gentle finger to his lips tilting his head towards West. After another second, he nodded again and gestured for Kisame to follow.

He did, without hesitation.

This had been Itachi’s territory. This had been where his exams had been, where he had grown up, where he had spent more than half of his entire life. The last four years had been spent somewhere else, but Konoha had been his home.

Kisame would trust him in navigating it.

They walked through the trees for a few minutes, the roil of his gut keeping Kisame company. Something was wrong, that much he knew. By the time his instincts were screaming at him, they had come across a clearing and Itachi took to the trees, climbing through the branches soundlessly.

If Kisame were spotted, he would just be arrested and taken in for questioning.

Probably.

It Itachi was to be spotted, then there would be an outcry and danger for everyone involved.

Before he could signal up to Itachi, Kisame heard a voice that he would rather have gone _decades_ without hearing again. He put a hand over his face to keep himself from groaning out loud. Orochimaru was here. He’d known the feel of the Sannin’s chakra, but he’d been hoping he was wrong. If he was here, then the littler Uchiha was in danger.

Kisame kept his swearing inside his head, but he pulled Samehada off of his back.

Above him, Itachi shifted through the branches, the only sign of him a leaf falling from a branch. It took all of Kisame’s will to not focus on his partner.

Instead, he focused on Sasuke and the two other Genin that were in the clearing with Orochimaru. The pink-haired girl was fairly brave, holding up a singular kunai to the man. Her hands were trembling and she seemed afraid, but she wasn’t letting her fear get to her.

Behind her, he could see a blond kid and a boy who looked almost like an Itachi-clone.

They were both on the ground, but the one that had to be Sasuke was trying to push himself up, his arms shaking as he did. The blond kid’s eyes were twitching, but he didn’t look like he was going to be waking up anytime soon. Kisame shifted his attention back to Orochimaru, feeling a sneer twist his face. This was the man who had threatened Itachi, had put more danger in his life than he needed.

An acorn dropped onto his shoulder and he caught it on the rebound, glancing up and nodding. It had hit too accurately to have been dropped from a tree.

Itachi was above him.

For a moment, when he turned his attention back to the gathering in front of him, Kisame saw the pink-haired girl’s eyes flicker towards him. She was afraid, but she also looked angry. Unwilling to just let this happen to her, to her teammates. She didn’t know who he was but she was willing to ask him for help, if the look in her eyes was anything to go by.

By the time Orochimaru bothered to look over his shoulder, Kisame had swung Samehada around and thrown him across the clearing.

The snakelike man snarled, his previously unbothered demeanor disappearing under the rage Kisame remembered so well. “Well,” he draped his mask back on, pulling his mood back under control as he stood and faced Kisame. “Looks like I found a little fish who thinks he’s a shark.”

Kisame moved closer to him again, grinning toothily when Orochimaru took a couple of hurried steps back. “Looks like I found a worm that thinks he’s a snake,” he chuckled. “Attacking the only thing he could reasonably take down. Tell me, Orochimaru,” he let his grin stretch a little wider. “Can you actually fight anything but children?”

If Itachi had been beside him, he would have glared at Kisame for even thinking to taunt Orochimaru.

“Oh, I think you know perfectly well that I can do much more damage than I have,” Orochimaru’s eyes narrowed, his fists clenching tight. Off to the side and slightly back, Kisame could hear the girl trying to wake up her teammates.

A kunai shot out of the trees, an explosive seal attached to it, and embedded in a tree next to Orochimaru’s head.

With a hiss, the man turned and fled further into the forest, chased away by the explosion licking at his back. With him gone, Kisame put Samehada on his back again and turned towards the girl. “You are _really_ not going to believe me if I tell you what I am here for,” he told her.

Her eyes were wide and more than a little afraid as she looked up at him. She was a kid, like Itachi had been when they met, and her hands trembled as she continued to try and wake her teammates. “Who…” she looked from her friends to him, then back again. “Who are you?”

“Hoshigaki Kisame,” he moved closer to her and crouched down, still nearly twice her sitting height even so. “Are they okay?” he glanced over the two boys, then looked at her. “Are you?”

Itachi’s hand was on his shoulder and he looked at him.

The girl seemed to have been stunned into silence by the arrival of the older Uchiha brother and she nodded slowly. Her mouth gaped for a minute, trying to start speaking again, and then she shook her head. “They aren’t able to move right now,” she managed to say.

“Hm,” Itachi dropped down next to his brother, sighing through his nose. Sasuke stared back up at him, eyes narrowed but in too much pain to do anything else. It was like watching a little dog try and stare down a wolf, Kisame thought as he watched the two of them. Sasuke’s hands clenched in the grass, his eyes flashing Sharingan red. Itachi simply stared right back at him, then put a hand on his shoulder. “We are interrupting the Chuunin exams,” he turned his head to look at Kisame.

“Yeah, I think we’re okay on that front – Orochimaru was in the _forest_ ,” Kisame felt his nose wrinkle in distaste. “Attacking _participants._ ”

“He tried to do something to Sasuke!” the girl burst out, her hands clenched together around the hilt of her kunai. “He lunged for him, and I don’t—I managed to get between them, but he was trying to do something to Sasuke,” she turned her head to look at her teammates, both of them still on the ground.

Her eyes narrowed on Itachi and Kisame wanted to laugh.

Headstrong girl, she was.

“Did he now,” Itachi looked at her, his eyes narrowed in the way that Kisame knew meant he was trying to remember something. “You are the Haruno girl, are you not?”

She blinked a couple of times, then nodded. “Sakura,” she said it cautiously, like she was expecting him to suddenly attack her. “Haruno Sakura.” She nodded, then glanced at Kisame. “…You’re a traitor to the village?” Sakura frowned, then nodded again. “And I don’t know who you are, but I don’t think…I don’t…” she put her face in one of her hands and started shaking, her small shoulders trembling.

She had to be, at the oldest, thirteen or fourteen if Kisame had to guess.

“You’ve done well,” Itachi murmured the words out.

That had been one of the things that had surprised Kisame the most when they had been assigned as a partnership: Itachi tended to try his best to reassure those younger than him. Their panic or crying was met with some amount of sympathy and gentle words from him.

Sakura continued to tremble, her shoulders shaking like she had started crying.

He could sympathize, she’d had a run-in with one of the legendary Sannin and he’d tried to attack one of her teammates. “There are some things that are not known,” Itachi put his other hand on her shoulder, ducking his head to meet her eyes. Sasuke watched him the entire time, eyes still narrowed but body too drained to do anything but lay there. “Some things you have not been told,” he addressed that towards his brother.

“We should,” Sakura rubbed at her face with the back of her hand, taking a deep breath and then another before she sat back up. “We should move. If we’re out in the open, we can be ambushed by the other teams that are running through the forest.”

“What is the purpose of this year’s exams?” Itachi asked as he dragged Sasuke into his arms, hauling him over a shoulder like he’d done it for years. Given what Itachi had told Kisame, it was likely that he had, at one point. “When I took the exam, the forest was involved, but my goal was to collect five guarded objects.” He glanced at Naruto, pausing as he considered the blond boy. Before he could even ask, Kisame crouched down and gathered him up, offering a hand to Sakura at the same time.

“We have to collect a scroll from another team,” Sakura pulled out one such scroll, showing it to both of them. “We started with Heaven, we have to get an Earth scroll.”

Itachi glanced at the scroll, then turned his head to see Sasuke’s face. “There are so many things you do not know,” he muttered. “Kisame?”

“Yeah, right behind you.” Kisame stayed close to Sakura, letting her be within arm’s reach of at least one of her teammates at all times. “What’s the plan, Itachi?” he watched as the two Uchiha brothers periodically stared at each other, Itachi with worry in his eyes, Sasuke with purely murderous glares. It was actually kind of funny to watch.

“There is an abandoned thicket, up ahead,” Itachi jerked his chin in a direction. “I remember it, it should be overgrown by now. Perfectly capable of hiding two fully grown bodies and three still-growing ones.” He glanced at Sakura. “If that is acceptable to you.”

“I don’t know what is happening,” Sakura’s voice was trembling as she continued to keep pace with both of them. “But you’re not trying to kill Sasuke or Naruto. That immediately makes you better than the other adult we’ve run into, in my mind.” She wrapped her arms around her body, her hands buried under her elbows. Not for the first time, Kisame felt a surge of anger at the practice of making soldiers out of children.

His hands had been soaked in blood for that very same practice.

He’d never been very fatherly, but watching Sakura worry and having to support an unconscious boy made the scraps of his paternal instinct rise to the surface. They had been expecting the usual level of danger and had, instead, run straight into Orochimaru.

“Did Orochimaru actually manage to make physical contact with you?” he heard Itachi ask his little brother.

Either Sasuke refused to answer or Kisame had missed it.

With a nasal sigh, Itachi rolled his eyes and turned back towards the path he was taking them on, turning suddenly around a cluster of trees each as big around his entire body. “Here,” he said, drawing Sakura and Kisame in after him.

Like he had said, there was an overgrown thicket of bushes, perfect for setting up a camp.

“Nine years ago,” Itachi looked at the branches growing over his head. “Where is it…” he settled Sasuke on the ground before stepping away, reaching into a knothole above his head on the trunk of a tree. In seconds, Kisame knew he’d found what he’d been looking for; the smile on Itachi’s face was slight, barely there, but he recognized it.

“Sakura,” Itachi approached her, crouching down to be on her level again. Once inside the thicket, with Naruto and Sasuke settled on the ground, she had dropped down to sit next to them. “Take this, go set up a wire trap around the thicket.” He handed her the coil of wire he’d pulled from the tree, nodding when she closed her hands around it. “Set it low, remember where you place it.”

With a nod, a fiery determination in her eyes, Sakura got to her feet and headed out to do what he’d asked.

Itachi sat down on the ground, next to Kisame, and started digging through his pack. “Jinchuuriki,” he muttered the word, pulling out part of his supply of food. “Knocked unconscious, he’ll be hungry when he wakes. You should eat, too, Sasuke.”

All he got in return was another glare, Sasuke’s back against a tree being the only thing that kept him upright.

They sat in silence until Sakura returned, dropping to her knees next to Naruto, putting a hand against his forehead and checking his pulse. “I think…” she furrowed her brow, glancing up at Kisame and Itachi. “I think he’ll be awake, soon.”

Kisame leaned forward and checked the boy’s pulse as well. “I think you’re right,” he nodded.

“Clearly something is happening,” Itachi spoke up again, crossing his legs and glancing at his little brother. “Something dangerous. Orochimaru would _never_ risk revealing himself if he did not think he had an advantage in something.” He looked at Sakura. “Is there anyone you know of who has seemed suspicious during the exams?”

“Well,” Sakura glanced at Sasuke as well, looking somewhat sheepish when he narrowed his eyes at her. Kisame couldn’t blame the boy – by all appearances, Sakura was trusting the word of two well-known S class nin. “There is a set of siblings. From Sunagakure,” she put a finger to her lip, her eyes going unfocused as she thought about it. “The red-haired one, he seems…Like he isn’t here for the exam,” she shook her head, regaining focus as she looked at Itachi, then at Kisame.

“What do you mean?” Kisame prodded after a second of her just staring at him.

“I mean,” Sakura shook her head. “I might be wrong.”

“Not what I’m asking,” Kisame swiped a hand through the air, laughing internally when she nodded and sat back on her heels. “Does he seem like he has something planned?”

“He seems like he wants everyone dead,” Sasuke’s voice was still weaker than it should have been. If Kisame had to guess, he’d done what Itachi always tried to do: use a large amount of chakra and physical skills without enough food and sleep to fuel it. If that were true, they were more alike than they would probably admit to. “His name is Gaara, he carries a gourd full of sand.”

Itachi’s head swiveled around, his eyes landing on Kisame. “Gaara?”

Kisame knew _exactly_ what he was getting at.

Sabaku no Gaara, vessel of Shukaku, the one-tailed demon. Sasori and Deidara were assigned to retrieve him, at some point. When they had the missions leading up to it done, when they had done enough reconnaissance, when they had figured out a schedule and a time.

Itachi got an odd look on his face and turned to his little brother. “Is there a shinobi named Kabuto in the exams?”

This time, it seemed like it was Sasuke’s turn to make an odd face.

“Yes,” Sakura was the one to answer. “He helped us out a bit, gave us some advice.”

With a small noise in the back of his throat, Itachi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kabuto is Sasori’s contact in Orochimaru’s organization,” he muttered. “If he is here, then Orochimaru _has a plan_. He never does anything big without a plan, even if that plan fails. He only attacked me because he had a hand to play, attempting to blackmail me with revealing the status of my mission to the rest of the Akatsuki.”

Itachi must have been tired, Kisame had never seen him so talkative before.

So able to slip up.

Sasuke sat up like he had been branded, pitching forward onto his knees as he did. “ _What_ mission?”

Kisame moved between the two of them, nudging Sasuke back with a hand and settling on the ground between the two. “You have a scroll to plan around,” he told Sasuke. “One of your teammates is injured, the other is worried. Plan for the end of the exams, how you’re all going to get through them.”

The smaller ninja went back easily, falling against the trunk of the tree. He had definitely done what Itachi usually did. It was a little like watching a kitten fall over.

As if he had been waiting for his cue, Naruto twitched, then sat up.

When he saw where he was and who he was with, he froze in place, then crouched into a defensive pose, his eyes flicking between Kisame and Itachi.

As if he hadn’t just been voicing his anger and displeasure with the situation, Sasuke sighed and nudged him with a foot. “We’re safe, idiot.” He looked at Itachi, then at Naruto. “Mostly. There are still some questions to be asked, things we need answers to, but we are safe for now.” He seemed to smile in the way Kisame recognized from Itachi, that barely-there line of his mouth, look-away-and-miss-it.

Naruto leaned back against the tree next to Sasuke. “Why does he look like Zabuza?”

Both of his teammates froze, looking first at him then at Kisame. For effect, Kisame grinned as wide as he could. “I was on a team with him, once.”

“What?” Naruto laughed, his eyes wide, something like terror in them.

“The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist,” Kisame nodded. “The sharpened teeth were a sign of honor, a signal of association and a point of pride. Most of the Swordsmen would not live long enough to feel the effects of ill health from the act.” His grin tilted down at the edges as he thought of his old friends. “Zabuza and I were on the same mission. Our leader disavowed us for being found out, we went in knowing that we would be considered mutinous and dangerous if we were found out or caught.” He watched as Sasuke went stiff, like he was considering something that had startled him. “We were put in place to dispatch the leader of our village if they were doing something that would cause suffering for our people. A suicide squad of sorts,” he shrugged. “Zabuza and I were some of the longest surviving members of the team. The others took on missions or were found by the wrong people at the wrong time.”

The silence that followed was awkward enough to make Kisame want to be anywhere else.

Eventually, Naruto looked at both of his teammates and then back at Kisame. “He died keeping us safe, in the end,” he whispered. “He took down the guy who was keeping the entire village scared. I mean,” he swallowed uselessly, hunching into himself. “I think it was more about being betrayed at that point, but he kept us safe while he did it.”

“If Zabuza ended up dead for something, kid,” Kisame huffed out a small laugh. “It means he felt it was worth dying for.”

He could see the weight those words pulled off of Naruto’s shoulders and he wanted to scream and rail against a system that made children into weapons. Wanted to break the system that had created Itachi, made an orphan out of Sasuke, made Naruto take the blame for someone’s death. For the first time since he had left his village, he felt responsible for a cluster of people younger than him. Itachi hadn’t fallen into that category, too much of an adult even at the age of fourteen.

Itachi had made it known that he could take care of himself.

That hadn’t stopped Kisame from trying, it had just made his attempts quieter, relegating them to things like leaving food for Itachi and urging him to get to sleep on a better schedule.

But these were children.

Something tugged at Kisame’s heart, just a bit, with the way Sakura and Naruto and Sasuke kept looking to each other to see what they were all doing. They were a team, the same way he and the Swordsmen had been. Younger, yes, more inexperienced and certainly more fragile, but similar. He and the others of his team had been recruited at various ages, but Kiri had put restrictions on shinobi being younger than fourteen.

Trained before then, of course, but kept from active missions and facing death and destruction until they were at least fourteen.

Konoha seemed to be operating on a much different system and it made his mouth taste sour.

“Get some sleep,” he told the entire group of people sitting around him, including Itachi. “I’ll take a watch shift. You three,” he motioned at the _literal children_ sitting around him. “Have a task to set yourselves to. You,” he jabbed a finger towards Itachi. “Are going to take second watch if we need it. You should rest, for now, we’ll need to be in peak condition.”

Itachi nodded at him and angled his head up, towards the tops of the trees.

The subtle suggestion was not lost on Kisame, who stood and curled his chakra around his feet. As he walked up the trunk of the tree, he tried his best not to worry about Itachi. Whatever was happening, Itachi could likely handle it, but there was now the element of Orochimaru running around. Whatever he said, _to his spy_ , might make it back to the Akatsuki. Kabuto was, from what Kisame knew, under a jutsu that compelled him to tell Sasori whatever the puppet master wanted to know. If he was recalled to Sasori’s side during this, he would tell Akasuna _everything_ and then Itachi and Kisame might be screwed.

He would do whatever he could to keep the older Uchiha safe. They had been partners in keeping their secrets for five years, had been the ones keeping each other alive and safe on missions.

Kisame took care of Itachi, made sure he got food and sleep when he needed it, but Itachi also did the same for him.

If he tried to stay awake for a few days, running on adrenaline and the rage that had always come so easily when he fought, Itachi would drag him back down and make him sleep. That had only happened a couple of times, but Itachi had automatically known what to do about it. Kisame looked back down at his partner from the top of the tree, frowning for a minute. He knew it was for the best that he keep watch up high, but that did not mean he had to like it.

Itachi fought best at close range.

Even though he was a more than competent fighter, it still made Kisame nervous when someone managed to get close enough to fight him. Even the best fighters could slip up and Itachi only needed to drop his guard once, gambling on his Sharingan to save him.

At the edge of his awareness, he could feel a smaller chakra signal coming closer to him.

When Sasuke’s head popped up over the curve of a tree branch, Kisame almost wanted to grab him by the scruff of his neck and drop him back down again. It was like trying to reason with a toddler, he would have said that out loud if Itachi had been the only one to hear it. He didn’t think Sasuke would take that so well, however, and he kept silent for the moment.

“Why isn’t my brother trying to kill me?”

That was _not_ the question Kisame had been anticipating in seeing the younger Uchiha follow him up the tree.

“Kid,” Kisame sighed, putting his hand to his face. “There’s a _lot_ you don’t know.”

Sasuke leaned back against a thick branch, settling in in an obvious way, as if letting Kisame know he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. When he finished, he looked up at Kisame with his eyes red, his arms crossed over his chest.

Sighing, Kisame shook his head. “You are so much like him, it’s almost not even funny.” He threw his hands up into the air, trying to show exasperation. He didn’t know how successful he was. “Itachi will probably be mad that I told you anything.” He cautioned. Sasuke just looked back at him, unimpressed. “He killed your entire family for a _reason_ , kid.”

“I knew that _already_ ,” Sasuke’s upper lip curled back, angry in a way Itachi never showed. Kisame knew how to deal with one Uchiha, but not the other. Mostly, anyway.

Good to know.

“Your entire clan was planning to betray your village,” Kisame cut directly through whatever else he might have said. “There would have been a war as a result of what they were doing and Itachi could not stand by and let that happen. Your brother is, first and foremost, a _pacifist._ ” He watched as Sasuke’s entire face twitched. “Yeah, for all his accomplishments in fighting and the ranks he gained, he hates fighting.”

“How can I possibly believe that?” Sasuke’s face was so much more expressive than Itachi’s that it was accidentally hilarious.

“Believe it or don’t,” Kisame shrugged. “But your brother has been ignoring his own beliefs for the sake of the greater good since before you were old enough to be aware of such a thing.”

He let Sasuke think over that in silence, continuing to monitor the forest around them. A couple of chakra signatures nearby had him a little worried, but they continued moving past without so much as slowing down. Kisame could tell that Sasuke had more questions, could tell when he was ready to ask another one. “Yeah?”

“How long have you known him?”

With a smile, Kisame glanced back down towards where Itachi was resting against the trunk of the tree. “Since he ran from your village with the reputation of a traitor on his back. His renown was enough to get him picked up by the Akatsuki. He’s one of two spies working from within to make sure that things don’t get out of hand and end in one of the biggest wars in history.”

Sasuke blinked a couple of times, frowning. “Two spies?”

“I’m the other,” Kisame raised a hand, mockingly saluting. “The Swordsmen of the Mist were not the bloody and violent coupe-minded betrayers we were thought to be. Our entire order was put into place to take down vicious rulers who ignored the safety and concerns of our people before those concerns and safety got too ignored to be fixed. We killed the leader of our village because he was planning on slaughtering specific classes of citizens.”

“And Zabuza was one of those Swordsmen.” Sasuke filled in with the information he’d already known. “The two of you were probably friends for a while.”

“Yeah,” Kisame nodded. “Since we were about six years old.”

“Oh,” Sasuke tilted his head and Kisame almost laughed at the way he moved. It reflected the way Itachi moved at his most confused. “When you two became Genin.”

“Nope.”

“What?” Sasuke thought over it for a minute, then nodded. “Then you had to have entered the academy at that time.”

“Our village works on a different system than yours, kid,” Kisame shook his head. “Zabuza became a Genin at the age of nine, about a year after I did. I was ten when I became a Genin. Our village _didn’t allow_ kids under the age of eight to become Genin. Personally, I think it’s a better way of doing things,” he shrugged a shoulder, glancing down to spot Itachi already asleep against the tree, it seemed. He might not have been, but the way his shoulders were relaxed spoke of him actually having heeded Kisame’s orders couched in the phrasing of advice. “Child soldiers aren’t my favorite thing.”

“We’re not—”

“How old was the youngest person you personally know who became a Genin?” Kisame raised an eyebrow at Sasuke. “When they got the rank, I mean.”

Sasuke went silent for a minute, then looked away. “Kakashi-sensei,” he muttered. “He was five when he got ranked as a Genin.”

“What about Chuunin rank?”

“…Less than a year later,” Sasuke looked back at Kisame.

“Uh-huh,” Kisame nodded, turning to look at the oncoming path, watching the creatures moving around on the path below. “And can you imagine being _five_ and going through _this_ ,” he stretched out his arm, spreading his fingers to encompass the forest. “And having it be anything other than a child’s worst nightmare? Civilian kids are allowed to still be clutching their mother’s skirts at that age, allowed to still be afraid of the dark and cry when they’re scared.”

Lapsing into silence again, his eyes wide, Sasuke looked down at his hands.

After several minutes, he spoke up again. “How old were you when you became a Chuunin?”

“I was about seventeen, but I’d been training for a position in the Swordsmen since I achieved Genin.” Kisame huffed out a laugh. “My chakra had resonated with one of the swords – Samehada, in specific. When that happens, the ninja in question is trained in sword use, how to treat the sword they’re due to inherit, and they only take on the sword when the previous wielder relinquishes it or they die.”

“Is that how you got your sword?” Sasuke had curled his knees to his chest at some point. He looked younger than he was, his eyes big and dark and Kisame could see fear and panic in them.

“The previous wielder died because I killed him.” Before Sasuke could say anything else, Kisame shook his head. “You should probably head back down and actually try to get some sleep. If you can’t sleep, you should eat the food Itachi put out for you. Make sure Naruto eats as well – and Sakura.” He nodded, then sighed. “Trust me, your body will thank you when you wake up if you do.”

Instead of moving, Sasuke looked down at where his teammates and brother were. “Orochimaru tried to bite me,” he admitted quietly, his arms wrapped around his knees. “Sakura probably couldn’t see it, but he tried to put his teeth into my neck.” One of his arms went loose, a hand gently cupping just under his jaw. “I don’t know what it would have done, but I don’t think it would have been good.

“Considering some of the shit I know Orochimaru does,” Kisame popped his neck, moving his head from side to side. “It probably wouldn’t have been. Go get some rest, eat some food. I don’t think things are going to stay this calm forever.”

He watched as Sasuke half-walked, half-slid down the trunk of the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the main story has started. 
> 
> Just to be clear -- I am rewriting the entire series. Things will be changing. People will live and others will die and there are a few redemptions in there somewhere.
> 
> Thing I imagined in my mind while writing this chapter:  
> Kisame: *Scruffs Sasuke and drops him into the cluster of young shinobi* Go the fuck to sleep, kid.


	5. Course Correcting

When the three of them woke up, Kisame had come down out of the tree.

Itachi had gone up instead, taking the second watch as they’d arranged. The first thing Sasuke did when he woke up was look towards where his brother was perched. “Is he still up there?” he glanced at Kisame, his eyes still the almost-black of every day as opposed to the Sharingan red.

“Yeah,” Kisame yawned against the back of his hand. “We are going to have to leave you three at some point. This is your exam and there might be an issue of Orochimaru’s spy finding us.”

Sakura nodded, nudging food towards her teammates.

Naruto’s yawn was nearly enough to split his head in half, his teeth slightly pointed. For some reason, he looked exhausted. “Yeah,” he nodded. Actually, Kisame thought as he watched the nine-tailed demon’s vessel dragged food into his mouth at such a slow pace that it looked like he was going in slow motion, he looked like he was about to keel over.

From the way Itachi had left more food for them, Kisame thought he had to have noticed it as well.

Sasuke, unlike his two teammates, was only poking at his food slowly. Every few seconds, he glanced at Sakura and Naruto’s faces, like he was waiting for something.

The kid’s trust issues were worse than Itachi’s.

Kisame couldn’t blame him, however, and he just shook his head. Between Itachi’s hand being forced and the way the village had to have reacted to the last Uchiha, Sasuke had probably been overwhelmed with the different kinds of attention. He wasn’t a lot like Itachi but he was just enough like his big brother that Kisame could _almost_ predict his reactions and behaviors.

A pebble landed on his shoulder, striking in the way Itachi used to grab his attention, and Kisame looked up.

He saw a hand peeking over the edge of the tree, gesturing for him. “You three should head out on your test,” he told the three Genin, putting a hand on the tree trunk in front of him. “Be careful,” he met Sasuke’s eyes for a second, then looked at Sakura and Naruto. The chakra he had sensed from the boy was diminished, like something was blocking it.

Orochimaru had to have done something, messed with him in some way.

In return, Sakura nodded, performing a quick little bow that was barely more than a nod of her head. “Thank you,” she looked up at him, her bright green eyes wide. Kisame grinned, then jumped up the trunk of the tree, moving quickly and silently to where Itachi was.

“There is something coming,” Itachi muttered once Kisame was seated next to him.

They sat in silence for a moment, Kisame steadily becoming more aware of a chakra signature coming closer. The three kids were gone, thankfully, because Kisame wasn’t sure what was coming next. Itachi stayed steady in his position, however, his knuckles going white the only difference. The only way to tell that he was not completely at ease.

The sound of leaves falling had Kisame turning his head to see someone standing next to him. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” he muttered.

A ninja wearing a face-covering mask and head protector had crouched down on the branch next to him. “ _Yo,_ ” they said, a hand up. For all the forced casualness, Kisame could tell that their shoulders were drawn tight and ready to lash out. “The forest is only open to participants in the exam,” they continued.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kisame could see Itachi looking away.

He knew why.

With the unusual hairstyle and the different outfit, Itachi could look away and not be immediately recognized. Based on his partner’s stance, this was someone he recognized.

Kisame rubbed the back of his neck, thinking of several things he could say and rejecting all of them. “Well,” he eventually said. “It’s probably not going to help, but we’re not here to attack anyone.”

“You’re right,” the ninja stayed crouched on the end of the branch. “It doesn’t help.”

“Can you just…” Kisame sighed. “There is something happening in the forest and we sensed it and we managed to save a couple of the Genins. They were attacked by someone else who should not be in here either. We recognized the attacker’s chakra.” He watched the ninja’s predator-still position and rubbed a hand down his face. “No matter what I say, this is just not going to end well.”

The shinobi stared at him, one-eyed, for another minute of silence before standing up. “Who are you?”

“I,” Kisame glanced at Itachi.

There were _many_ reasons to be grateful for several years of working together. Not the least of which was knowing all of Itachi’s nonverbal signals. The twitch of his fingers was urging Kisame to be honest. It was more than a little bit of a relief.

“Hoshigaki Kisame,” Kisame held up his hands. “And I think I know who you are.”

The singular eye narrowed.

“Hatake Kakashi,” Kisame continued. “I…I can’t tell you exactly why I’m here, there’s a cover story I need to keep intact, but you need to tell _someone_ that three of your villages’ Genin are in danger. They’re a single team,” he nodded when Kakashi – he was still a little unsure, he’d never seen the legendary shinobi in person, before – continued to stare at him.

“Which team?” was Kakashi’s only question. “What Genins?”

“Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto,” Kisame listed off the names. “I don’t know if I can tell you—”

Kakashi had rushed forward, shoving his back against the trunk of the tree, his hands fisted in the collar of Kisame’s shirt. “What _happened_ to them?” he demanded.

“They were attacked,” Itachi finally spoke up. When Kakashi had moved, he had simply stepped out of the way. “Orochimaru is running around in the Chuunin exams dressed as a Genin from one of the villages. Sasuke was knocked unconscious, though he is otherwise unharmed. Sakura was mostly just shocked. Naruto seemed to have been the only one actually damaged in the attack.”

Slowly turning his head, Kakashi stared at Itachi. “Uchiha.”

“Hatake.”

Kakashi released Kisame’s collar with careful motions. “Why are you here?”

“Honestly?” Itachi sighed. “To protect my little brother. That is all I have ever done.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Seems like all I ever do, if I am telling the truth. Corrupted governing people, corrupted family…Sasuke keeps getting dropped in the middle of it all.”

“So the giant shark.”

“Kisame is the partner assigned to me in the organization I went into deep cover with,” Itachi glanced Kisame’s way, a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “His own mission left him disavowed and branded as an executioner, a mercenary, an assassin, and a traitor to his village.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Much like my own, I suppose.”

“You’re here to do…What, exactly?” Kakashi’s head tilted and Kisame almost wanted to shove him out of the tree. From the way they were talking, he could tell they were familiar with each other. “Protect him again? Alright. Say I do believe you. Why should I listen?” he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve brought an S-ranked ninja into the village. You've been branded a murderer and a traitor by the entire village. None of this speaks to good intentions.”

“Orochimaru worked for the organization we’re using as cover,” Kisame spoke up again. “I recognized his chakra and there was an incident a while ago, where he tried to take over Itachi’s body. We figured he would probably do the same to Sasuke.”

Kakashi looked to Itachi, who simply nodded.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He put his hands to his face, dragging them down slowly, before he nodded as well. “Alright. You two are going to leave the forest,” Kakashi gestured towards the perimeter. “You are going to make your way, as unrecognized as possible, towards the memorial stone.” He glanced at Itachi, studying him for a moment. “I will meet up with you there.”

“Understood,” Itachi gestured for Kisame to follow him.

“I will want an explanation of why I had to fight another member of your old team,” Kakashi called after Kisame.

“You’ll get one,” Kisame promised.

As they moved through the trees, he watched Itachi’s face. He was nineteen now, but he had always seemed so much older than his years, especially when his entire body tensed up and his forehead furrowed like that. A flash of fondness rushed through Kisame, the urge to reach out and ruffle the younger man’s hair. He refrained, mostly because he knew Itachi would probably just put a knife through his hand. He was a pacifist, but he also had grown up knowing how to defend himself.

Kisame wanted to protect him, keep him safe from everything that was ever thrown at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun times ahead, that's for sure. 
> 
> Anyways -- Hi Kakashi!


	6. Telling Old Truths

The memorial stone was interesting to him.

Itachi sat down near it, crossing his legs as he studied the face of the stone. “This entire trip has been the most talkative I’ve seen you,” Kisame said as he sat down next to him. “You missed your little brother, didn’t you?”

For a moment, Itachi simply continued staring at the memorial. He leaned back on his hands, his nails scratching in the dirt as he curled his fingers. His lips actually twisted up into a smile. “Yes,” he nodded. “I did. I’m glad to see him again.” He turned to look at Kisame. “If we have been followed by another member of the Akatsuki, we are going to be found out.” He glanced towards the woods, then back at Kisame. The silent question was obvious.

“We haven’t been,” Kisame assured him. “Not unless they suddenly know how to mask their chakra.”

“Hm.”

Kisame grinned, plucking a few blades of grass and rubbing them between his fingers until they balled up. “You knew who it was when he showed up, didn’t you? You turned away so that he wouldn’t see your face.” His smile dropped, shifting into a frown. “Until he acted like he was going to attack me.”

“I cannot let you die,” Itachi’s voice was almost monotone as he spoke, quieter than usual.

“If I die, you suddenly have to get a new partner when you go back to the Akatsuki,” Kisame nodded. It made sense. He was Itachi’s best hope for safety in an organization full of psychopaths and immortals. If he were dead, Itachi would get a new partner and then his safety would be compromised – he could take care of himself, but sometimes he slipped up. It was rare that it happened, Itachi was generally good at keeping himself to himself.

When he was tired, he would make mistakes.

Kisame still suspected that he hadn’t meant to say as much to his little brother as he had.

He felt Itachi’s eyes practically burning a hole in his face. “It is not just that,” Itachi shook his head. “If you die, I lose the one friend I have. I have done that before,” he looked like he was going to say something, then shook his head again. “I am in no position to be alone in this mission. I need the few people I have that I can trust.”

Itachi trusted him.

Something about that made Kisame’s chest constrict, his grin returning.

Approaching footsteps made them both turn. Kakashi had arrived, another shinobi behind him. Itachi’s eyes narrowed as he watched the second approach. “Yamato,” he inclined his head, then looked at Kakashi. “Former Anbu. Good.”

“We knew something was wrong when you suddenly killed your entire clan,” Kakashi sighed and plopped down next to him. “I want explanations, Itachi. I was your team leader – I think I _deserve_ an explanation.” He gestured for the other shinobi, Yamato, to sit down on his other side. It put the man closer to Kisame but he sat down without hesitation. “Your betrayal and slaughter of your clan aside, you abandoned Konoha.”

“I was ordered to kill them,” Itachi said it like he’d had to force the words out of his mouth. Kisame could understand that: a long time had been spent keeping their secrets. It was not going to be easy to spill them now. “They were plotting a rebellion, something that would have started a war. If I had not killed them, the entirety…” he sighed, jerking his head to one side, as if clearing his thoughts. “My father was planning on betraying the village. I was ordered to kill my clan. I kept Sasuke alive so that he could at least have a chance of growing up untouched by it.”

Kakashi nodded and Kisame almost wanted to thank whatever deity would listen. The man was actually listening instead of disregarding Itachi’s confession and attacking them.

“When I left the village,” Itachi continued. “I was found by the Akatsuki. Knowledge of what I had done had gotten to them but my motivations were still unknown. This allowed me to take a position in the organization, which I have been using to spy on them.” He turned his head towards Kisame, his eyes silently questioning.

“I’m kind of the same way,” Kisame said after a few seconds of eye contact with Itachi. “My team was put in place to depose any leaders that tried to do our people wrong, we ended up disavowed when people found out that we did that to the leader of that time, we scattered. Because of the nature of our organization, it’s much the same as Itachi’s story – The Akatsuki found out the actions but not the motivations. Our motivations were hidden because they were orders set forth by the highest authority possible in our situations.”

“So Zabuza was one of your team,” Kakashi seemed to frown. “He either lost his morals along the way or he—”

“I should mention, Zabuza was always the one who had the easiest time with undercover missions,” Kisame cut in. “If he was working with someone and seeming to enjoy it despite them having deplorable morals, it’s probably because he was trying to lose himself in enough cover. When you go traitor to your village, your entire reputation is shot and you know it.”

Kakashi stared at him, his entire body tensed. “He attacked my students,” he said, his voice tight, his words chosen carefully. “We were given a mission that had been wrongly ranked.”

“Zabuza was good at undercover and terrible at holding his temper sometimes,” Kisame amended. “Being chased off by children isn’t something he would have let slide. He always had a soft spot for kids, hated the fact that most villages were training them to be killers from the time they could walk. If your students bested him in a fight, then his ego would have interfered.”

Seemingly at a loss for words, Kakashi stood up, walking away. He stopped about six feet off, then turned on his heel and faced them again. “There are a great deal many things I do not know,” he started off saying. “And the fact that some of the history of my village is one of those things is upsetting. You,” he turned to Itachi. “Who ordered you to kill your clan?” he waited for a moment, then shook his head. “Actually, I shouldn’t know that.” He pressed both hands against his face, covering his one eye. “This makes…So little sense. But it also fills in information gaps.”

“That kind of sense that doesn’t make sense,” Yamato finally spoke up, having been watching silently.

Itachi nodded, meeting Kisame’s eyes.

“Who are your students?” Kisame drew Kakashi’s attention back to them.

“Who do you think?” Kakashi reached up and fisted a hand in his own hair, tugging for a few seconds before letting his hand drop back down. “I recognized Itachi’s chakra near them and found the two of you.”

“Oh,” Kisame winced. “Yeah, I can see how that would come across as not great.” He stood up, leaving Samehada on the ground next to Itachi as a show of good faith. “You have to believe us, though, we’re just here to make sure Orochimaru does not manage to attack them. I mean,” he made a face, regretting his phrasing instantly. “You don’t have to believe us, but that’s what we’re doing.”

“I…” Kakashi sighed. “I believe you. Itachi has never tended towards lying and he, in the same team as me, never did anything he did not wholeheartedly believe in. If he were to fake a betrayal and trust you enough to tell you about it, I’m going to have to say I believe in the both of you.” He pointed at Kisame’s face. “If you even for a moment seem like you’re going to attack this village, I will put your body so deep in the ground that not even the worms will find you.”

Kisame chuckled, nodding.

Yamato raised an eyebrow, then turned to look at Itachi again. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“Ideally, you would tell us what the next Chuunin exam is going to be, when it will take place,” Itachi shook his head even as he spoke. “But that would be something you may not wish to do. Too many risks, if we are lying then we know the time and location of the village’s next generation gathering. If nothing else,” he looked up at Kakashi. “Keep my brother safe. The other two as well, but my brother is going to be targeted for more than he will know.”

“Orochimaru wants an Uchiha for something,” Kakashi walked back towards him, crouching down. “What, exactly?”

“A host,” Itachi said at the same time as Kisame said, “A vessel.”

Kakashi looked between the two of them, stunned. “ _Excuse me?”_ he blinked a couple of times. “I’m sorry, say that _again?_ ”

“Orochimaru tried to take over Itachi’s body, a couple of years ago.” Kisame crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s how we knew the snake knew the truth about at least Itachi. Him being chased off from the Akatsuki actually made things a little easier for the both of us.”

“It destroyed his credibility in their eyes,” Itachi added. “Since he was previously seen trying to possess my body, anything he said was ignored as him doing his best to get me alone with him.”

For a second, Kisame could see the anxiety and worry flashing through Kakashi’s singular eye. The man had blanched even paler than before, verging on corpse-flesh tones. If it hadn’t been so worrying, it would have been amusing. “Do you have anything,” Kakashi took a deep breath. “That would help you if you were caught in the village?”

“Yes,” Itachi nodded. “I have information I can use to barter my way out of permanent imprisonment.” He gestured towards Kisame. “I have nothing that would be of any use to keep him safe as well.”

That flare of fondness showed up again in Kisame’s chest, warming him.

The very fact that, in the middle of what might as well have been a war against Orochimaru, for the sake of Itachi’s only remaining family, Itachi thought about his wellbeing and safety was…Comforting. He couldn’t quite put a name to the feeling it inspired, but he could cherish it in the quiet of his mind. Itachi had only ever wanted his little brother safe.

To know that the feeling extended to Kisame was flattering.

Kisame turned his attention back to the others in time to hear Kakashi mutter a quiet but very passionate, “ _Fuck._ ”

He could agree with the sentiment.

This was not going to be an easy mission. Nothing in his life so far had been easy, so he hadn’t exactly been expecting this to be, but the fact that things had gotten so complicated was worrying. His only plan, after being forced to betray his village, had been to gather information on the nightmarish shinobi out in the world, maybe bring that information back home and warn people. Or to give that information to whoever it needed to go to, no matter what village they were associated with.

Itachi had given him a path in life and he would be grateful for it no matter where it took him. “Is there a room we can pay for?” he asked, glancing at Itachi. “We will need somewhere to use as a base. If there is not a room, we can find something else.”

“There should be a couple of places,” Yamato spoke up again, smiling. “I can take you to one – not the most glamorous of options, but quiet, clean, and discreet.” He stood up, offering Kisame a small bow. “They will not speak of who they have as guests to anyone, will not gossip and give you away. I suspect that is something that would be appreciated right now.” He looked at Itachi, who nodded. “If you would like, we can go now.”

“Yeah,” Kisame leaned down and grabbed Samehada, slinging it across his back again. He offered a hand to Itachi, who took it and gave him the faintest of smiles. For some reason, his skin tingled where it made contact with Itachi’s. “That would probably be the best idea.”

“Follow me, then,” Yamato nodded.

Itachi immediately moved to do so, Kisame staying back to look at Kakashi for a moment. “I know we’ve thrown your view of the world into a tailspin,” he told the man. “But we’re really just trying to keep things running smoothly.”

“That sounds like Itachi,” Kakashi nodded, his eye still closed. “Thank you for looking after them.”

With another grin, Kisame rushed after Itachi and Yamato.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More people are on Itachi and Kisame's side and things are going to be quickly getting out of hand from here on out. 
> 
> Things are...Slow going right now, but I promise they'll be interesting. I just hope everyone is going to enjoy what comes next. Maybe trust me to handle the plot? I'd like to think I'm doing it pretty well.


	7. Of An Age

“He was one of my captains as well.”

Kisame looked up from the book he had found in the room. “Hmm?”

“Kakashi,” Itachi sat on his own bed, his hair pulled down and loosed. His eyes were, oddly, not red anymore. Kisame didn’t know if he had managed to shut off his Sharingan or if he had used a genjutsu to alter them to look less out-of-place as they moved through the village. His hands were clasped together in his lap. “He was one of my captains. I was on his team.”

“Huh,” Kisame leaned back against the wall, the book resting on his knee like a steepled roof. “And now he has your brother as his student.”

“I imagine my family is something that gives him much grief,” Itachi muttered. “First my cousin, then me, then he gets Sasuke as his student…” he sighed, putting his face in his hands. “Our family has a history with the man and now he finds out something about what happened.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” Itachi looked up again. “I could have ignored my orders. I could have ignored the politics of my family. I could have walked away.”

Kisame shook his head. “No you couldn’t.” he sat up, setting the book down on the bed. “You told me about what you went through. The third war – Itachi, you were _four_ when that happened. You lost people, you lost friends. That alone is, in your own words, what made you into a pacifist.” With a chuckle, Kisame stood up and moved across the room, sitting down on the ground beside Itachi’s bed. “You have done nothing but what you had to do your entire life. When the chance came for you to help stop the fourth war, you took it.”

In a rare showing of a lack of confidence, Itachi rubbed at his arm, nails digging in for a moment. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he muttered. “I worry that what I do will not be enough. That it will be too late by the time I do something.”

“You’re doing pretty good by my standards,” Kisame shrugged a shoulder. “At least the thing you got caught for wasn’t the murder of a high-profile leader.”

Itachi huffed a breath out of his nose, something that Kisame had long ago learned meant he was amused. He had spent six years learning the quirks and habits of his partner, learning what each one meant. Instead of saying something else, Itachi nodded and ducked his head down, looking up at Kisame from behind the shield of his hair. “If you have the opportunity to go back home, to be a free man and return to the life you lived, would you?”

“Well,” Kisame leaned back, putting his weight on his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He frowned. “I knew when I took the job that there was a chance I would be caught for it. I did what I had to do, I did my job. I don’t have any regrets about that part of things.”

“I know there is something you regret,” Itachi gathered his hair in his hands, pulling it over one shoulder. It was uncharacteristically shy, and it made something in Kisame want to protect him forever.

“But I only regret that,” Kisame nodded.

“I—” Itachi snapped his mouth shut, shaking his head. He put a hand on Kisame’s shoulder, his hand warm against the cooler skin. Kisame didn’t know if that was an Itachi thing or an Uchiha thing – the entire family spat fire as a birthright, after all – but he wasn’t going to stop the younger man now. If Itachi thought physical touch at a certain moment was important enough to actually go through, he was just going to sit still and let it happen.

Before that thought had fully left his mind, Itachi’s mouth was pressed against his.

Oh.

_Oh._

Kisame blinked a couple of times, too shocked to do anything until Itachi was already pulling away. He reached a hand out and hauled the other back in closer, kissing him again. He may not have been a genius of the same level as the Uchiha, but he knew when to act.

Both of Itachi’s hands came to rest on his chest, running over the planes of his pectorals, in a slow exploration.

They both kept the kiss light, almost chaste – it would have been if Itachi and Kisame’s hands hadn’t been on each other. When it ended, Itachi pressed their foreheads together. “I…” he trailed off again, still pressing his palms to Kisame’s chest.

“Yeah,” Kisame nodded, meeting his eyes. “Yeah.”

For the first time, he could see how scared Itachi was. He had seen him face down Orochimaru, Deidara at his worst, had seen him fight people that would have sent anyone else running straight into madness. Itachi had never gotten scared before. Had never allowed himself to be that vulnerable before. Kisame ran his hands up Itachi’s arms, rubbed small, soothing circles on his shoulders for a second, then slid back down again.

This was how it was supposed to be, he decided.

Like the missing piece of a puzzle, something that should happen. Itachi leaned into him, took a deep breath, then scrambled up and climbed into his lap. His smaller body slotted against Kisame’s like it was meant to be there.

“So how long have you been planning this one?” Kisame chuckled as he said it.

“Too long,” Itachi shook his head. “I just…Too long.” He shrugged. “I did not want anything to happen to either one of us without having said something. I have…” he took a deep breath, then another, then a third. “I have wanted you since I was fifteen.” He admitted. “But you would never have looked my way if I had said anything back then.”

“No,” Kisame shook his head. “I really wouldn’t have. You were too young. I mean,” he made a noise in the back of his throat, trying to figure out what to say. “You’re an adult now, able to make your own choices, but even if I had thought of the possibility, I would never have made the first move.”

“I know.” Itachi’s lips flattened into a thin line, the only obvious sign of irritation that Kisame had ever seen from him. “On the one hand, I respect you for that. On the other, it was frustrating to watch you and want you and know that I would have to be the one to say something.” He dropped his head to Kisame’s shoulder, his hands sliding up and around until one arm was clutching at his shoulders, his other hand in Kisame’s hair. “I am worried about what is to come and I am worried about our fates.” He whispered. “But I did not want anything to happen to us without you having knowledge of this.”

“Okay,” Kisame couldn’t help chuckling again. “Okay.”

He let his hands rest on Itachi’s back, keeping the smaller man close. The scent of him, this close, was warm and comforting, a hint of a spice he couldn’t quite identify. If this was how this was going to go, he would be happy to have it.

He hadn’t been exaggerating earlier – this felt like the missing piece of the puzzle.

Like things were finally in place.

Where they should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking finally, you two. Geez, were you going to wait until one of you was dead or dying?


	8. Switching Thoughts

When he had been thirteen years old and suddenly on the run, Itachi had known a few things for certain.

Firstly: Anyone he could have trusted before was now dead. There was no one left he could trust, not with anything. This was potentially problematic as existing without a plan to fall back on, a support system, was a dangerous game.

If he made one wrong move, he was going to be killed where he stood.

Joining the Akatsuki had been a risky step to take, but it had gotten him closer to the answers he needed. He had only realized how frightened he had been when he had been found by his new work partner.

Secondly: If he made the mistake of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, he would end up dead.

That had been simple enough to live with. He had hardly ever been a fount of vocalization, had preferred to let his actions speak for him. Unless he was surrounded with friends and family and people he could trust, he had never really been one for loquaciousness. That had been easily solved the moment he had gone on the run.

See his first point, after all.

But he had met Kisame and been found out because of his own panic. After his time in the Anbu, after his slaughtering of his clan, he had thought that his anxiety and panic about taking lives would have subsided entirely. Finding himself in a new space, with new people and new goals and everything having been pulled away from him, Itachi had fallen into a panic attack. Panicked enough to not notice the person standing in the corner of the room.

Kisame had known immediately that something was wrong.

Had known, from the very start, that Itachi had done what he’d had to do. Had taken the only course he felt was available to him. It had been something like a benediction, having the older man know. Kisame had sat down with him and prodded gently, until he had been able to see the whole picture. With just a few sentences, Kisame had offered Itachi a safe place to stand, had offered up his own story. They were in the flood together, keeping each other upright and keeping themselves safe.

Itachi had, almost shamefully, developed a crush on the older man. It had been six years since then and he had once vowed to keep it to himself for the rest of his life.

He could sense when things were taking a turn for the worse, however.

With what might lie ahead, Itachi had needed Kisame to know. He was nineteen, now, old enough to be considered an adult by almost any standard. If circumstances had been ideal—

But they never were.

Either you lived with loving someone, loved them with everything you had in you, or you died alone. There was no room for regret in their lives, Itachi thought as he watched Kisame doze. The shark-like man’s arm was around Itachi’s waist, loosely held. If Itachi really wanted to, he could slip out of his grasp and leave, move back to his own bed on the other side of the room. They had migrated to Kisame’s out of deference to the man’s height, his bed bigger.

He found himself wanting to stay exactly where he was. He was comfortable and warm.

He felt safe.

Kisame’s breath blew across the top of his head, their legs brushing together as the man shifted in his sleep. Itachi let himself smile, tucking his head under Kisame’s chin. This was the safest, the happiest, he had felt since leaving home.

“I can hear you thinking too much,” Kisame’s voice came when his breathing stuttered, the words smoothed and blurred by sleep. His arm went a little tighter for a second, a reassuring motion, before his hand slid up Itachi’s back. “Everything okay?” he leaned his head back, tilting it down so he could see Itachi’s face. His eyes might have been frightening to anyone else, but Itachi had gotten used to them a long time ago.

“Just thinking about everything,” Itachi shook his head, feeling his hair shift.

Kisame paused, his lips pursed. “Did you want to go back to your bed?” his arm loosened.

Something inside of Itachi reacted almost violently at the idea, his hands clenching tight in the fabric of Kisame’s shirt. “No.” he said, leaving no room for changing his mind.

“I mean, you’re choosing to be stuck with me in more than just the working partnership way,” Kisame moved to sit up only to be held in place by Itachi’s grip. He could have easily escaped, given how much bigger and physically stronger he was, but he let himself be held still. “I’m not the best looking guy and I’m eleven years older than you – Itachi, you’re nineteen.”

“Yes,” Itachi nodded. “And I am old enough to make my own decisions. If I am old enough to march into battle, to be ordered to slaughter a group of people, to leave home and become one of the most feared names,” he met Kisame’s eyes. “Then I am old enough to love you.”

It was not often that he let himself say things without thinking about it. Usually, it only happened when he was exhausted or stressed to the point of no filter from his mind to his mouth.

Kisame didn’t say anything, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

Eventually, he swallowed and cleared his throat, his mouth opening and closing a few times before the words he was attempting to say came out. “You love me?” his hand, still on Itachi’s waist, cupped warmly over his hip, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over the sharp point of bone. “ _You_ love _me._ ” His face shifted from a slight panic to _awestruck_ and Itachi wanted to sit up and kiss him.

So he did.

“You keep things so damn close to the chest,” Kisame muttered after their lips were no longer touching. “I mean, I get it. If you don’t, you might get killed after being exposed as a spy inside the Akatsuki,” he chuckled, wrapping both of his arms around Itachi. “I just thought you…I don’t know.”

Itachi shrugged, tucking himself back up against Kisame. His legs were across the man’s lap, feet tucking in neatly under his calves. “It is not just a physical attraction,” he said plainly.

“Okay.” Kisame nodded. “Good.”

Under his ear, Itachi could hear his heartbeat speeding up. One of Kisame’s hands settled on the back of his head, brushing through his hair.

He couldn’t remember when he had fallen in love.

Having a crush on the man, that had been a brief thing. It had happened when he had just joined the Akatsuki, had just been found by Kisame and told he was not alone. That had been the beginning of it. Falling in love had happened somewhere along the way. Itachi didn’t know if it had been when Kisame had started making sure he got enough sleep and food or if it had been when Kisame had vowed to follow Itachi and take on his missions as his own.

He had fallen in love, however, and now Kisame knew.

“You’ve never done anything without an actual reason, before,” Kisame’s whisper was easy enough to hear from his position against the man’s chest. “So I’m going to believe you. I just…Don’t know why. I’m not the greatest looking guy and I know I have a temper.”

“You also have a heart and you care for me. I do not know if you love me as well, but you do not have to.” Itachi offered the words quietly and he actually meant them. If Kisame did not love him back, then it was not the end of the world. The older man was obviously willing to hold him, content to be held as well, and Itachi would just live with Kisame knowing how he felt. His emotions did not need reciprocation to be validated. “You have taken my causes as your own, you have kept me safe for years, and you have come to help me when doing so risks both of our cover stories. And our lives.”

“Where else would I be?” Kisame laughed. “Why would I want to leave you behind for anything?”

His palm cupped around the back of Itachi’s head for a second, his nails gently scratching at his scalp. “I think,” he started, his hand going back to brushing through Itachi’s hair. “That I love you too.” Kisame shook his head, grinning. “We’ll see how well I do. I’m going to mess up at some point.”

“And at that point, we will work it out,” Itachi leaned into his hand when it passed down his scalp again.

“I think I can do that,” Kisame leaned down and rubbed his chin affectionately against Itachi’s cheek. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Itachi looked up, smiling again.

Kissing Kisame was comforting, like something he had been without for ages and had suddenly found. Their working relationship was probably going to be ruined until they figured out how to work around this.

Itachi had every bit of confidence in the idea that they would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So: From here, we're dealing with Itachi's POV for a while.


	9. People I Knew

The second challenge was over.

Sasuke and the rest of his team had made it out of the forest in five days, having collected a scroll from another team. Even though three days had passed since the last had made it out, the villagers were still talking about the results. Itachi continued to listen to the proctors of the exam discussing the scores and times of the shinobi that had made it out.

Some of them hadn’t made it out.

From what he could hear, some of them had been found as corpses in the forest, blood across the ground from an attack they couldn’t recognize. Given the new arrivals, that was not so surprising. There were many ninja in the village, currently, who had traveled in for the exams and their techniques would be unknown. Itachi slipped away silently, running across rooftops to arrive back at the room they were renting.

He dropped down to the porch as Kisame walked up the steps. They nodded and entered the room before speaking.

“Some of the participants are dead,” Itachi told him.

“Great,” Kisame pinched the bridge of his nose, setting the bag of food he had purchased down on the table. “One of the exam proctors has gone missing, apparently. A man named Hayate,” he frowned. “Something is about to happen.”

“I know,” Itachi hesitated for a second, then leaned his head against Kisame’s arm. Thankfully, for his pride, Kisame smiled and curled his other arm around Itachi, his fingers sliding through his hair and tugging gently on his braid. “I knew him. Six years older than me,” he shook his head, leaning his cheek into Kisame’s palm. “Perpetually sick, had a partner who died before I left the village.”

“What are we going to do?” Kisame’s own hesitation was obvious. “We’re on a bit of a schedule, we have to get back to base at some point to report in. They won’t accept coded messages sent back describing progress forever.”

Itachi nodded, shutting his eyes for a minute, one of his hands resting on Kisame’s chest. “I just—” he sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll have to figure something out, but our hands are tied right now. Did you send the message today?” he opened his eyes, looking up at Kisame who nodded. “Good. That will buy us a little more time. If we can leverage the fact that the exams are both giving us cover to snatch him away and at the same time making it harder to find a moment to do that, then they won’t call us back immediately.”

“Itachi?” Kisame cupped his hands around Itachi’s cheeks.

Itachi nearly melted into the gesture, his hands laying on top of Kisame’s. “Yes?”

“What happens if we get found out by the Akatsuki?”

It wasn’t the first time either of them had asked. Usually, when one of them asked the question, they followed it up with a list of the consequences. This time, however, Itachi smiled. “If we get found out while still in Konoha, we give ourselves up. I use my old orders and identity to keep myself alive while also vouching for you,” he took a deep breath. “This gives you time and an opening to offer up information on the Akatsuki.”

“If we’re found out, go full traitor to the Akatsuki,” Kisame grinned. “Good. If we’re found out by them, they’re going to try and kill us. We owe them no loyalties.”

“Precisely. We both joined them for the sake of gathering information and exposing their plots,” Itachi went still as he heard footsteps passing by outside. “I am, in all honesty, surprised that Kakashi did not ask for a full Anbu squad to follow our every move,” he said once the footsteps had passed. “He always saw the wisdom of unorthodox decisions. He preferred to test his new Genin team by making sure they could function as a solid unit.”

“So he basically, by not getting us followed, is saying he approves of this?”

“I would not say that, exactly, but something along those lines.” Itachi, with a bone-deep ache of regret at the action, pulled away from Kisame and put the food away. “I would say that it is more the fact that my ‘betrayal’ of the village would have come as a complete surprise. He was one of the few that knew I preferred peaceful measure.”

Kisame, apparently, was not done holding on to him – he moved behind Itachi, hovering just a few inches away. “My strange pacifist shinobi,” he sounded proud.

“You can touch me,” Itachi looked over his shoulder at the man. “I was not quite done, yet.”

He hesitated a few seconds before almost plastering himself along Itachi’s back. “When we go back – if we go back, how are we going to handle this?” Kisame inclined his head, brushing his lips along the crown of Itachi’s head. “I don’t think they’ll suspect something from us being closer, but how are we going to handle the balance between our working relationship and our…” he made a noise in the back of his throat.

So there was a need for another demonstration, Itachi thought as he slid the last package into the storage for it. The root of it was undoubtedly self-image issues, Kisame had mentioned how he looked as one of the reasons not to pursue Itachi.

Itachi turned on the spot and hopped up onto the counter, putting Kisame between his knees. There was a second of silence as Kisame took in their new positions.

When his face turned a fairly purple color, Itachi almost grinned.

Instead, he gripped the edge of Kisame’s shirt and reeled him in closer, sliding his hands up his hips, his waist, sliding up his back. Closing his eyes, Itachi pressed his lips against Kisame’s throat, kissing the skin gently as his hands came to a stop on Kisame’s shoulder blades, underneath his shirt. “We will handle it as we have handled everything else,” he muttered. “As it comes up.”

From where he was touching him, Itachi could feel Kisame’s core temperature rise. He hadn’t been lying, what he felt for the man was not purely physical.

But he would be lying if he said that his physical form had nothing to do with it.

Nothing like Kisame seemed to think, however.

Kisame’s hand moved, trying to find balance, and ended up on Itachi’s thigh. With a small squeaking noise, Kisame glanced down and took a deep breath. “Itachi,” he practically whined out his name, his chest heaving as he tried to take a full lungful of air. “ _Itachi._ ”

“Kisame,” Itachi debated the merits for a second before he nipped gently at his throat. “I am physically and emotionally attracted to you,” he explained. “The only things keeping me from heading out that door and telling everyone are my status as an S-nin and the fact that I know you might not appreciate it.” He tugged Kisame a little closer and there was no mistaking the heat and hardness he felt brushing against him. “You are, for how much more physically demonstrative you play yourself as, much more private.

“I keep everything to myself,” Itachi continued, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. He knew Kisame could hear him still, however. “Everything of mine is held close and quiet. You offer pieces of yourself forward, play a character that shares your name and body, and keep everything else held to your chest.”

Kisame’s next breath was a shuddering thing, like he was forcing himself to hold back.

“In other words,” Itachi breathed the words next to his ear, nosing at the curve of his jaw before leaning back up. “We will handle it as we handle everything else. As I said before. As the problem arises, we will handle the results.” He curled his fingers and dragged his hands down Kisame’s back. “If you would like to hold off on anything physical, both until you are certain and we are in a safer place, I would understand that.”

With a growl, Kisame shook his head, leaning Itachi backwards across the counter, bringing their bodies flush. “You,” he snarled the word out, biting playfully at Itachi’s jaw. “Are a _tease_ , Uchiha.” He put both of his hands on Itachi’s thighs, dragging him closer until he simply lifted him off the counter. With surprisingly steady steps, he moved them across the room to his bed, settling Itachi down among the blankets. For his part in things, Itachi arched against him, smiling and pulling him closer. He had been willing to wait – an entire adulthood, thus far, of being alone would have been easy enough to continue – but the heat of Kisame against him had been hard to ignore.

Itachi pulled Kisame down on top of him, putting as much of his love for the man as he could into the kiss that followed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, I will save Hayate. This is not that day.


	10. Drama (A Place And A Time)

“Naruto has gone _where?_ ”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow and Itachi, not for the first time, wanted to hit him. Kakashi had always been one of the few people Itachi would have made an exception in his pacifism for. The way he seemed to smirk and shrug. “Jiraiya has volunteered to train him. If the two of you,” here he glanced at Kisame, who had his fists clenched. Itachi knew it was only a reaction to his own anger. “Are truly not meaning to capture him and return to the Akatsuki with him, then there should be no problem.”

“Except for the fact that Jiraiya is one of the Legendary Three,” Itachi took a deep breath. “And after the exam, where he could not acquire Sasuke, Orochimaru may very well be going off to find his old teammates.”

“Then Naruto is with one of the people who can defend him,” Kakashi shrugged again. “And Orochimaru’s goal is not the capture of Naruto. His goal is an Uchiha.” He gestured at Itachi. “And with both of the remaining options left to him in Konoha, behind the walls he cannot breach, well…”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re insufferably smug?” Kisame growled the words out.

“Yes,” Kakashi chuckled.

Itachi clenched his teeth together, trying to avoid making any sort of noise that would bring undue attention to them. His ran his hands through his hair, gripping tight and tugging for a moment. “If you let my little brother anywhere out of your sight or the sight of someone you know you can trust,” Itachi jabbed a finger towards Kakashi’s face. “Then you will have to hope I never find you.”

“Understood,” the older ninja nodded. “I am going to be training him, myself.”

It was funny, how one sentence could banish his anger just like that. Itachi closed his eyes, his hands clenching helplessly. “Please,” he felt Kisame’s hand on his shoulder. “Just keep him _safe._ ”

Kakashi hummed an odd note, his hands tucked into his pockets as he leaned against the tree trunk behind him. “Y’know,” he began again after a minute. “The more I speak to you, the more I am convinced you are telling the truth. Deep cover had always been one of your specialties,” he nodded towards Kisame’s hand. “That, however, is a new detail and the two of you were not that close the last time I spoke with you.”

Without any self-consciousness, Itachi reached up and lay his hand over Kisame’s. “This is new,” he said, softly.

“Hm,” Kakashi narrowed his eye at Kisame. “And are you going to take care of him?”

“Do I need to answer that?” Kisame huffed.

“If you want to keep that hand, then yes. Itachi is far younger than you and younger even than me,” Kakashi’s eye seemed to glint brightly for a moment, something reminiscent of his younger self. Itachi frowned, staring at him to try and catch sight of it again. “In the absence of a father-figure giving his blessing for the relationship, I am stepping in.”

“I am old enough to make my own choices,” Itachi rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been able to be this open with his emotions since he had been a child, since Sasuke and him had been allowed to play and be children together. It seemed that it was something easily relearned. “And I have chosen to be with him. I am old enough to fight, to die in a war for the good of the world, I am old enough to make my choices about who I fall in love with.”

Instantly, he wanted to clamp his hands over his mouth and never speak again.

There was a reason he had avoided Konoha for so long – his home would always be the village he had been born and raised in. There was something about it that made him feel comfortable, made him feel safe. Comfort was an enemy at times, allowing his guard to drop and his tongue to loose words he would rather have kept to himself.

Seemingly stunned, Kakashi stood up straight, blinking a couple of times. “All jokes aside,” he said the words slowly, as if unsure how well they would be received. “Congratulations, Itachi.”

“Thank you,” Itachi glanced at Kisame, then made a decision.

He took a step back, practically plastering himself along the man’s side. As he had before, Kisame slid a hand along Itachi’s arm, his fingers curling warmly around Itachi’s hip. Kakashi watched the movement closely, shaking his head. “I am glad you’ve found someone,” he dropped his voice to nearly a whisper, leaning in slightly. “That is what you can do to make this world bearable. You find someone and you hold on with all you’ve got.”

He clapped a hand on each of their shoulders, having to reach up to about his eyeline to reach Kisame’s. “I am going to go train Sasuke for a while,” he told them. “Is there anything you want me to tell him?”

“Tell him to keep himself safe,” Itachi managed to get the words out slowly. “Tell him…” he trailed off, closing his eyes.

There wasn’t anything else he could ask Kakashi to say to Sasuke. Anything he really wanted to say was meant to be from big brother to little brother, just the two of them. Anything else he could say would be misconstrued if it came from a teacher instead of a big brother. Old jokes between them, the little codes they had made up from growing up together. There were some things he would likely never be able to say again, Sasuke too angry at him to accept the messages.

In the wake of his silence, however, Kisame stepped in. “Tell him to keep his teammates safe too.”

“I will,” Kakashi nodded, meeting Itachi’s gaze when he finally looked back up.

Something about the way he nodded, the way he held himself, said that he knew. With a nonchalant wave over his shoulder, Kakashi tucked his left hand into his pocket, his right pulling his book out of seemingly nowhere. “Ma, ma, I’ll look after him,” he called back to them, slipping easily into the carefree mask he always wore.

Itachi wanted to follow after him and make sure his little brother was okay. If it hadn’t been for Kisame’s hand on him, he might have given in to the urge.

They had a little less than a month until the next part of the exams, an entire period of time in which Orochimaru might change strategies and come running back to Konoha so soon after failing in anything regarding Sasuke. If the snake found out that Itachi was in the area, he might also come after him as well. As much as he hated to admit it, Itachi was in almost as much danger as his little brother. Without being in the double-edged protection of the Akatsuki base, Itachi was a target Orochimaru could aim for.

Kisame pulled him closer, tucking Itachi under his chin. “Kakashi won’t let anything happen to him,” he whispered.

“If he had any say about it, Kakashi wouldn’t let anyone die ever again,” Itachi muttered. His hands came up to rest on Kisame’s chest, feeling the man’s heart beating. He shook his head slowly. “Sasuke is in safe hands – if Naruto is with Jiraiya, he will be in fairly safe hands as well. The girl,” he paused, then remembered. “Sakura. She will be safe as well. Along with being a less likely target, she is surprisingly strong once she gets pushed to a point.”

“They’re good kids,” Kisame grinned down at him. “They’ll be okay.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Itachi was still restless.

 

Jiraiya was a good teacher, from what he had heard.

Strong, capable, and mostly patient. Itachi had heard legends about him from the time he had been a child – had heard stories about all three of the Sannin. He had trained the fourth Hokage, after all, training Naruto would likely prove to be no more difficult.

A Jinchuriki would be able to bring their amount of power and chakra into play during attacks that would be difficult for any other to master.

Knowing all of that still did nothing to assuage Itachi’s panic.

 

They had managed to make it into the stands to watch the third exam.

Between heavily applied Genjutsu and basic makeup techniques, Itachi had disguised himself easily enough. Kisame was easier to bring into the public eye despite his memorable features – Not much was known, outside of Kiri, about the Swordsmen. Their faces were unknown except to a select few, a part of their purpose in deposing and executing corrupt leaders.

Itachi wore thick eyeliner and had applied eyeshadow across his browbones and down his cheeks. His hair was pulled up into a braided crown, something so far different from his usual style that it would hardly even garner a second glance.

His eyes were under a Genjutsu, no longer red but a shade of dark brown.

Kisame, at his side, had an arm loosely around his waist. Neither of them had said anything to the other, but they could both feel the tension in the air. Something was going to happen.

The first couple of matches were interesting, they should have caught his attention, but they only barely managed to distract him for a few seconds before he was back to scanning the crowd. Here and there, he kept catching flashes of familiar chakras, people he had known, people who had known him.

He could not sense Sasuke’s.

Naruto was there, just there, on the edge of his awareness, as was Sakura. Others he had known where scattered around them, others he had sensed while in the forest.

“They’re threatening a disqualification,” Kisame leaned down and muttered.

Itachi turned just his eyes, nodding almost imperceptibly. If Sasuke did not arrive, then he would be disqualified. He wasn’t sure whether or not that would help ease the tightness in his chest – his brother was going through a rigorous test to see if he could compete to become a higher level of shinobi.

To see if he could kill even more powerful people.

Between his own ideology and his worry for his little brother, that was something of a source of stress for him.

“What’s he doing?” Kisame’s voice dragged him out of his thoughts again and when he turned to look, he saw Kakashi and Sasuke down on the ground below. From the leaves floating down around them, Itachi realized they had probably just arrived. For a moment, he remembered Sasuke running around, pretending to help him on missions in what little time they had to play together.  

“Being dramatic, in all likelihood,” Itachi shook his head, eyes darting around, watching the movement of the crowd. When he actually looked down at Sasuke, he almost laughed out loud. “Oh, yes, I was right.”

Kisame did laugh, curling his arm around Itachi’s waist a little tighter, actually dragging him just that little bit closer. He always had been good at knowing when Itachi was telling a joke, had always known what was being said seriously and what was said with humor. He had actually told Itachi, once, that his sense of humor was drier than an entire desert in a drought, had laughed and smiled as he said it.

There was to be no peace for his thoughts, it seemed.

Sasuke had grown up to be a good fighter.

With someone like Sabaku no Gaara as his fight-match, Sasuke was showing off some moves that Itachi would have praised him for. Difficult styles he recognized as Maito Gai’s, learned at some point along the way. His Sharingan to thank, no doubt, but impressive nonetheless.

The problem was that Gaara was an almost-perfect defensive fighter. That sand of his shielded him and moved almost as an extension of his body.

With his hands clenching the edge of his seat, Itachi watched as his little brother moved around the arena. His posture was perfect, each move pulled off with considerable poise and restraint. Not a single move wasted, not a single ounce of energy used for a useless purpose. Sasuke was growing up to be a perfect fighter, a shinobi of the highest degree.

Itachi hated it.

The fight continued, Gaara advancing and retreating in turn, forcing one or the other from Sasuke as well. They were stuck in a stalemate, despite Sasuke moving faster and faster, fast enough to out-maneuver the sand.

He nearly threw himself to his feet, held in place only by Kisame’s arm, when Sasuke ran up the wall and held still – less out of shock and more out of anger.

He had seen that technique before.

Kakashi had prided himself on that technique, had utilized it when he had no other choice. The Chidori was dangerous, painful for the person using it and a drain on their chakra. Sasuke simply stared at the shield of sand around Gaara, building up his chakra around his hand before taking a direct run towards it. Towards the mass of sand that tried to lash out at him, tried to stop him.

“Shh,” Kisame whispered, his mouth pulled into an unconvincing smile. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see,” he winced as Sasuke’s hand slammed into the shield of sand, puncturing it.

Across the way, Itachi could see movement, could hear gasps of disbelief. The two other Suna genin, the ones on Gaara’s team. From where he sat, he could see the blonde girl reach the railing, her hands clenched around it tightly enough to make her knuckles go white. The boy at her side stared as well, his face pale under his makeup, his eyes wide.

Down in the arena, Sasuke had managed to make it through the shield.

“Wait,” Kisame leaned forward in his seat, his smile dropping. “What’s going on?” he winced back at the noise that came from the cocoon. The scream that filled the air was somehow both heart-wrenching and horrifying, the sound of something suffering in a way it didn’t understand. Gaara was a Jinchuriki, Itachi turned that thought over in his mind, clasping his hands together in his lap. If he did not keep himself in his seat, his role in things would be discovered. The Akatsuki would likely kill not only him but Kisame.

Both of them would be in danger if he dropped everything and rushed to help his brother.

All of them, he amended as he glanced around, spotting Kakashi and his two other students. Naruto looked angry about something and Sakura looked mildly worried. Some of the other Genin were with them as well, the youngest Nara boy included.

And then it was like everything exploded outward all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we've reached the major changing point of the timeline. From here on out, we go AU entirely.


	11. Moments Of Change (Choices, Choices)

The genjutsu falling over the crowd made his eyes blur for a second, as hastily activated as it was.

Shaking his head, Itachi quickly dispersed it, noting with some alarm that the arena was empty of the Genin that had been there before. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen and the crowd around him had fallen asleep. Next to him, Kisame sat up, shaking his head vigorously. “What the hell,” he muttered, glancing around. “Itachi?”

“We need to move,” Itachi glanced towards the Hokage’s booth, noting the amount of smoke and dust coming from it. Before he could register the cause, he had to duck down, a kunai flying mere inches from his face. “Kisame, stay down!” he grabbed the man’s hand, dragging him to the floor. The older man practically landed on top of him, barely a hand’s width of space between their faces. Itachi stared up at him, nodding slowly. “Stay low,” he whispered. “Make your way towards where Naruto and Sakura are.”

Kisame nodded, his eyes darting down to follow the line of Itachi’s mouth as he spoke. “Got it,” he nodded again, clambering gracelessly off of Itachi, staying crouched behind the row of seats. Itachi rolled over and followed behind him, trying to keep his mind on the importance of what was happening instead of how nice it had felt to be underneath Kisame.

A fact that was, quite wonderfully, helped along by the constant barrage of attacks.

“Ah,” Itachi turned, meeting Sakura’s eyes. From one section to the next, it had been a fairly quick journey. Somehow, despite an entire crowd of civilians and shinobi, she was one of the only ones awake still. Naruto had fallen prey to the genjutsu, likely still under the influence of not knowing. “You’re awake too, Itachi,” Sakura nodded her head in a short bow, glancing up towards where she had likely last seen someone.

“You knew it was a genjutsu,” Itachi almost wanted to smile. “And you dispelled it right away.”

“Kakashi-sensei taught us how to recognize it,” Sakura looked at Kisame. “He said that it was something we needed to know.”

Before Itachi could say anything to that, he had to turn and block a fist aiming directly at his head. Maito Gai stood in front of him, just as brightly-green as he remembered. “I am not your enemy,” he hissed the words out, looking around. Kakashi appeared a few seconds later, putting a hand on Gai’s shoulder.

“There is a long story we have missed,” Kakashi told him. “Sakura, go wake Naruto and Shikamaru up.”

For a moment, Itachi could see a clear vision of what was happening with the Hokage. The dust settled, just for a second, and he made eye contact with Sarutobi.

The third Hokage, who had given him his orders all those years ago, stared back. Itachi nodded at him, seeing the Kazekage’s arm around his throat, dragging him back. The chakra flaring from the man felt too familiar and Itachi gritted his teeth, his fists clenching tight.

_Orochimaru._

The third Hokage would likely end the death with his own death, if it came down to it. Sarutobi had always believed in sacrificing himself if it meant keeping those he cared about alive. His sons, his grandson – they were all within the village. Sarutobi Hiruzen was the sort to make a sacrifice of himself to keep his beloved village alive. Itachi watched as the dust obscured them again, barely even hearing what was being said between Kakashi and Gai.

“Itachi-San,” Sakura’s voice was quiet, her hand hovering awkwardly over his arm. Even Kisame had dropped the honorific everywhere except when in front of the rest of the Akatsuki. “I- Could you come with us?”

“For a time,” Itachi turned his head, making eye contact with Kisame. They would need to return to the Akatsuki in a steadily shrinking span of time. “Go undo the genjutsu on your teammate and your friend,” he pulled out a kunai, lashing out to block a hit from landing on her. “Fast as you can, if you would,” he took up a defensive position at her back. Kisame nodded at him, pulling Samehada out of seemingly nowhere before he swung it at an attacker.

The shinobi in the mask, Itachi would have bet just about anything, had to be Kabuto.

“Here,” a sword was thrust into his free hand, Kakashi jerking his chin towards the dust cloud that had once more obscured the Hokage. “Do what you can. You always were better at fighting with a sword.”

“I can use a kunai—”

“I’d rather you _not_ start out like you’re already fighting to your death,” Kakashi ducked a shuriken thrown his way. “Makes the rest of the fight so much easier.” He saluted almost mockingly, ducking out of sight amongst the battle. His voice called back, however, and Itachi felt something he had thought he’d long since lost rise up in his chest. “I don’t let my teammates suffer alone!”

The surge of warmth through him, the rise of the old protectiveness and unwillingness to let those he knew die, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than himself that actually mattered—

It hit Itachi, then.

Storing the smaller blade back in his pouch, Itachi did a small twirl of the sword in his hands, adjusting himself to the weight of it.

Nothing else mattered.

Protecting his home, his little brother, everything in Konoha, was all that was important. He still had friends and family, here. Tenuous connections he had thought long since severed stretched taut again, pinned in place like a butterfly to a board through the physical anchor of the sword Kakashi had handed to him. The man had remembered what weapon Itachi had preferred, had thought to arm him even when it was clear he was still unsure of trusting him.

Here, where they were, in Konoha, the Akatsuki suddenly seemed to him the least important thing.

“Itachi!” Kisame gestured almost violently towards where the Third Hokage was standing with Orochimaru, having moved to the roof of the stands. Orochimaru seemed to have dropped his disguise, standing unmasked before those who were awake to see him. Sarutobi stood nearby to him, a wall having gone up and barring anyone from getting any closer.

If he had been the type of person to let his emotions show outwardly, Itachi would probably have sworn viciously right then. Instead, he simply tucked the sword into a position where it wouldn’t harm him and started running.

Kisame on his heels, they made it towards Sarutobi, stuttering to a halt just outside the barrier.

“Oh,” Orochimaru’s eyes moved to them in a slow motion, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Itachi. How good to see you.” He licked his lips, his eyes drifting towards Kisame. “And Hoshigaki Kisame – tell me, was I remiss in not telling them about you as well?” he turned his gaze back towards Sarutobi, who angled his head to look at Itachi.

“What do you mean, as well?” Kisame scoffed, Samehada drawn in front of him, preparing for whatever might be coming next. “From what I heard, you were chased off with no one believing you.”

“Oh, but someone _does_ ,” Orochimaru’s words were a hiss, his eyes narrowing. “And I have more of a position of leverage over you than you would think.” He took a step forward, chuckling. Reflexively, Itachi took half a step forward as well, covering the fact that he wanted to be _anywhere else_ right then. If it wouldn’t have outed him as horrified and on the edge of terror, he would have taken a few steps back. “Do you think I work alone?” he gestured at the ones holding the barrier up.

Itachi twirled the sword in his hand again, angling it for an attack if necessary. He didn’t say anything, only inclined his head to look at the snake with his chin raised.

“I figured out who you were still loyal to,” Orochimaru chuckled again. “You are a part of the reason I came back to Konoha. You were sending notes back, progress updates and information on all of the members of the Akatsuki. I have half a mind to let that slip. Your undercover positions would be compromised and you would have _nowhere_ to run to.”

“Itachi,” Sarutobi’s voice was rougher than when he had last heard the man and it spoke volumes to how much older he had gotten in that time. “You have a mission to attend to,” he nodded when Itachi turned his head slightly to look at him. “There needs to be someone protecting the will of fire,” he whispered. That was the phrase he had blessed Itachi’s mission with, the words he had spoken to let him know what he needed to do. In that instant, however, Itachi wanted to scream, to rage, to deny the orders he was still following after all the years that had passed.

If he left, Sarutobi would die and Orochimaru would gain that much of an upper hand.

He could not let that happen.

“Itachi,” Kisame’s hand on his arm was almost unwelcome – he was going to physical remove Itachi from the situation if he had to. Instead of fighting back, Itachi let him. The Genins needed someone to keep them safe – they were capable and skilled, but they were still children.

They were still inexperienced.

An Anbu dropped down next to him, the cat mask doing little to stall Itachi’s recognition of him. “Uchiha-San,” the Anbu inclined his head. “We have this situation in our sights. Do what you must.”

Feeling his Sharingan spin, Itachi nodded, narrowing his eyes at Orochimaru one last time.

He needed to find Sasuke and the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	12. Extending A Hand

By the time he had caught up to Sasuke and the others, some things had happened that Itachi would have preferred not to happen.

If he had managed to find their actual path amongst the chaos, from a broken twig and some disturbed branches, then there was no doubt that the shinobi that had followed Orochimaru’s orders would notice it too. He had no time to correct the telltale signs, moving instead to follow the paths of the younger ninja. Kisame was just behind him, a reassuring presence, silent as he followed every change of direction Itachi made.

They had spent too long working together for anything other than knowing exactly what they were doing.

“Itachi,” Kisame spoke up after a few more yards of catching up. “There are two groups to follow.”

The sentence felt like a hook in his chest, but Itachi knew what he meant. If they didn’t split up, there was a chance that a child was going to die – potentially someone he knew. There were signs, if someone was looking for them, of the group splitting up. Sakura, Naruto, and the Nara boy had gone off as a group and now one of those three had split off. Kakashi’s summon, Pakkun, was hopefully still with at least one of the two groups.

“Split off,” Itachi came to a halt, steadied by Kisame’s hand on his shoulder. “Follow the one that went off alone.” He looked up at Kisame, his stomach roiling with nerves. It felt like something horrible was going to happen. With a deep breath, he reached up and pulled the man’s face down, pressing their lips together quickly.

“Got it,” Kisame’s hand brushed against his cheek, a small moment of intimacy, before he stepped back and away, following the path of the one who had been left on their own.

Itachi took off, practically running as he moved through the trees.

When the clearing came into view, he almost tripped over his own feet, spotting Sasuke facing off against Gaara again. Naruto stood there as well, his chest heaving as if he had just run up to the scene. His hands were curled into fists at his sides

Off and behind, Itachi could see Sakura.

Shikamaru was on his own, then, and Kisame would be the one helping him. Given his faith in Kisame’s abilities, Itachi let himself forget about the boy for the moment. “Sabaku no Gaara,” he grabbed the Jinchuriki’s attention, watching fathomless eyes the color of green glass stare at him. He felt like prey, in that instant, and he fought against the shiver that ran down his neck. As he spoke, he stepped carefully closer, watching the sand swirling around Gaara and forming tendrils. It stroked almost lovingly at his hair, forming a part of his body and giving Shukaku a path into the world. Earlier, in the fight against Sasuke, Itachi had heard him snarl something about ‘Mother’, and he had to wonder how tenuous of a grasp on reality Gaara had. “Please,” he spoke again, watching as Gaara snarled.

Naruto stared at him and he could see the worry in his eyes, even from the distance between them. Itachi couldn’t blame him – if one thing went wrong right now, then a great deal many of his friends could die.

 _“ **Please what?**_ ”

The voice that came from the small boy, even smaller than Sasuke, just barely less than a year older than Naruto, made Itachi want to be almost anywhere else.

That had to be Shukaku speaking.

“Do not hurt them,” Itachi sheathed the sword, slinging it across his back, thankful that Kakashi had the foresight to give him something he could put away. “They have done nothing to you—”

“ ** _HE HURT US!”_**

Sasuke jumped at the sudden swing of an arm, his fists clenched on the ground as he stared at Gaara. The younger boy was no longer the one in control, it seemed. Shukaku was probably feeding off of his panic, the fear he likely felt at being able to have been hurt. Itachi had seen the file about Gaara, had known about Sasori and Deidara’s future mission. Gaara had spent his entire life unable to be damaged, the sand keeping assassins from coming near him.

“Yes,” Itachi held a hand out. “And you were planning on killing him.”

Being stared at by a demon that was peering from behind the host’s eyes was a soul-shaking experience.

“He’s my little brother,” Itachi continued. “He is all I have left of my family.”

He could see Sasuke turn back to him, his eyes wide. It must have been startling, for him, to know what Itachi had done. Why he had done it. Kisame had admitted freely that he had told Sasuke. For a moment, when he looked at his brother, Itachi could see something that almost looked like tears in his eyes.

Gaara’s mouth opened, a pained scream coming out as his sand lashed forward, curling around Sakura and dragging her across the ground. “ ** _You are all going to die here,_** ” Shukaku’s voice hissed. “ ** _Your blood will stain the earth and you will be buried in an early grave._** ” He raised his hands, one still looking like a frail human hand, the other that of a demon. It was a move Itachi had seen in the preliminaries – Gai’s student still wasn’t capable of walking on his own, Itachi had heard.

The sand around Sakura squeezed and she choked.

At the same instant, a wall of sand threw itself towards Sasuke, sharpening into spikes as it flew.

His feet already moving without input from his brain, Itachi whipped around. “Get her!” Itachi ordered as he moved past Naruto, watching the boy become a blur of orange, a couple of clones manifesting as he started running towards Sakura. Throwing himself in front of Sasuke, between the wall of sand and his brother, Itachi braced for an impact.

For some reason, it never came.

The noise that followed the silence was almost worse than the scream – Gaara’s anguished sobs as the sand fell from his body, dripping to the ground as he fisted his hands in his hair and yanked.

“ _He hated me,”_ Gaara whispered, staring at the ground.

His uncle had tried to kill him on orders from his father. Itachi remembered that. His mother had died in childbirth, the demon sealed in her son making the entire affair difficult and painful. Curled up on the ground beneath him, Sasuke stared at Gaara as he fell to his knees. The keening cry as he practically fell apart was heart-wrenching.

Naruto, helping Sakura stay upright, stared at the smaller Jinchuriki.

Funnily enough, Itachi could almost tell what he was thinking: If that had been the relationship between him and Kyuubi, then there would have been so many more problems.

“Itachi?”

He looked down, meeting Sasuke’s eyes.

Slowly, he moved away from him, kneeling a few feet away as he brushed sand off of his arms. “Sasuke,” he hesitated, then sighed. “There is so much you do not know.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Sasuke covered his face as he sat up, groaning out of frustration. “Shark-guy said you’d been ordered to do it. That our parents – our entire family – were trying to start another war. I…” he shivered as he looked at Gaara. “He was going to kill me.”

“And he didn’t,” Itachi looked as well.

The redhead did not seem to be doing too well, his arms wrapped around his head as he continued to fall apart on the ground.

With a rustle of fabric, Naruto appeared next to them, settling Sakura down on the ground. Sasuke checked on her quickly, worry creasing between his eyes. Naruto, however, ignored it and moved past them again. Itachi watched as he moved towards Gaara, crouching down carefully. “You don’t have to fight us,” he told the other. “I mean, you don’t have to do a lot of things. Fighting us is something you definitely don’t have to do. You can if you want to,” he sat down, crossing his legs, heedless of the sand scattered everywhere. “But I don’t think you want to. I think that’s the guy in your head.”

Gaara continued to curl into himself, his sharp shoulders raised almost like armor.

“I think we’re actually pretty neat, once you get used to us.” Naruto grinned, reaching forward. His hand landed on a shoulder, with no wave of sand rising to rip it off. “I mean – I don’t think my demon likes yours, but I think we could be friends.”

With an almost inhuman roll of his head, Gaara looked up at Naruto.

He sat up, arms still wrapped around himself, and looked at Naruto’s face, searching for something. Whatever it was, he seemed to find it – his sand drew into the gourd he wore on his back, the cork replacing itself when it was all in. “Friends.” His brow pulled down, hard to see movement with his lack of eyebrows. His voice was almost monotone, something nervous in it.

“Yeah,” Naruto’s grin grew bigger as he nodded. “I mean…Sasuke and Sakura are my friends,” he gestured to his teammates. “And I’ve made a bunch of friends recently. I think you and I could be pretty good ones.”

His hand was still on Gaara’s shoulder.

Almost hesitantly, Gaara leaned a little closer to him, seeming to nod.

“Good!” Naruto stood up, offering a hand to help Gaara to his feet. “Uh,” he looked towards the village, noticing the smoke in the sky that had just started to worry Itachi. “I think we’ve got some problems.”

Itachi allowed himself a moment to laugh – Naruto was his father’s son, through and through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Sasuke's not Sealed, Gaara's being helped, Naruto is able to keep building his friendship with both, Sakura isn't being as useless, and Itachi is able to keep his brother safe. 
> 
> Things are changing entirely from canon because I have some _complaints._


	13. A Place To Land

“You’re an idiot.”

Itachi turned from where he was watching Naruto and Gaara speaking quietly. The blond boy was grinning about something, showing Gaara something by digging his fingers through the dirt on the ground. When Kisame had arrived, Kakashi, Asuma, and Shikamaru in tow, they had told Itachi about what was happening in the village. Orochimaru had managed to run off with Sarutobi, ending in the Hokage’s death.

Right now, however, he needed to address Sasuke.

“How so?” he raised an eyebrow, wincing when he shifted and the bandages on his back strained. Gaara’s attack had, for the most part, stopped short of them but some of the spikes had hit him. Kisame had been unhappy about the injuries, bandaging them quickly.

Sasuke’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his jaw set in a way that reminded Itachi of their mother. “You’re an _idiot,_ ” he repeated. His breath came out choked, his entire body shaking and shuddering. “You could have _died_ keeping me alive and you—” he shook his head. “I’ve thought you wanted me dead for _years_ and now you’re _back_ and you could have died because you threw yourself in the way of something that was going to _kill me._ ”

He moved closer, his hands shaking.

“You killed our family,” Sasuke fixed his eyes on the ground. “Mother and father and our cousins and our aunts and uncles—You killed them all. And—” his breath caught this time, tears welling up in his eyes. “And then I find out that it’s because you were keeping them from betraying our village.” He dropped down to sit next to Itachi, curling his knees to his chest. “To keep them from starting a war.”

“Finding out that your family is a group of warmongering traitors is an experience I wanted to keep from you,” Itachi wished he could swallow the lump in his throat, the way he could hardly bear to breathe. “I did the best I could.”

“Kisame told me that you made a deal with someone to keep me alive,” Sasuke crossed his arms on top of his knees, peering up from behind the shield his arms created. “Who?” before Itachi could even think of how to phrase the answer, he sighed. “I just…This can’t be a coincidence. The attack on Konoha right as you come back, like someone knew you were returning and wanted to cause as much trouble with it as possible.”

Itachi stopped.

Oh, but he had been so blind.

“You,” he told Sasuke, shifting to face him entirely. “Are brilliant. Stay here.”

“Kisame said you shouldn’t move—”

“Yes, well,” Itachi got to his feet, walking away from Sasuke. “He can simply deal with it.”

He did get a glare as he moved to where his partner was, but Kisame stayed silent as Itachi stopped beside him. Kakashi raised an eyebrow, blinking placidly. “Danzo.”

“What about him?”

“Danzo is the one I made the deal with.” Itachi gestured towards where Sasuke sat, looking both concerned and confused. “To keep Sasuke alive, I made a deal with Danzo. He wanted the entire clan dead, including Sasuke, and I made a deal with him to keep my little brother alive, to try to give him a different life.” He looked at Kisame. “Orochimaru attacks right when we’re in Konoha – either we have a perfect sense of timing or he somehow knew we were going to be here.” He glanced at Kakashi, his shoulders drawing up as he prepared for the information he knew would upset the other man. “I worked to kill off my clan with a man called Madara, but it was not Madara.”

“Who was it, then?” Kakashi uncrossed his arms, standing up straight.

“Uchiha Obito,” Itachi took a step back when what little he could see of Kakashi’s face went even paler than it usually was. “He took on the title and the reputation of Madara after becoming disillusioned with the way things were.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to drag them back in.

Kakashi stared at him, wordless, his breath coming out in small gasps of air like he was being punched in the lungs. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides, his entire body stiff. “Obito?” he choked on the name like a poison – he had been Obito’s best friend, once. Had been his teammate and his friend and then Kakashi had lost him like he had lost everything else.

Another person whose life had been torn apart by the war and the fighting that followed.

The daily life of a shinobi.

“Yes,” Itachi clasped his hands together in front of himself. He could remember coming across Kakashi on the anniversary of Obito’s ‘death’. The older man had been unstable, on that day, one of the few times he ever let his true emotions show.

Kisame put his hand on Itachi’s shoulder, careful not to bother one of the injuries there. “He has been working with the Akatsuki,” he said it gently and Itachi wanted to kiss him. Both for him breaking the news and for his gesture of comfort. “Under the assumed name of Madara. We have a suspicion he is planning something bigger.”

From where he sat with Shikamaru, Asuma looked up at them. “This is why you left the village,” he frowned, standing up and walking to them. “There was a need to have an agent in the S-nin group, what did you call it?” he huffed. “The Akatsuki, right?”

“Yes,” Itachi nodded.

There was something soothing down to his very soul with his old teammates, his old friends, those who had known him, knowing that he had done what he had done for a reason.

“Are you expected back?” Asuma tucked his hands into his pockets. Despite the death of his father, he was holding together fairly well. “And if you are, how soon?” he studied Kisame’s face, a small smile on his lips. “They think you’re loyal to them, that you’ve been ousted by your villages completely.” He turned to Kakashi. “We need to find Tsunade. If she is to be sought out by Orochimaru, he may very well attempt to persuade her to his side of things.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi took a deep breath, covering his face with his hands. “Itachi, Kisame, I am assuming that you will need to return to base.”

“We’re going to have to report that we failed at our mission,” Kisame glanced over at Naruto and Gaara. “But yeah, we’re going to need to go. We should probably leave tomorrow, at the latest. The reports we’ve been sending aren’t going to hold up forever and we’ve already been out for some time. They’ve accepted the excuse of us needing to figure out the best time to advance, they’ve accepted the recon part of the mission.”

“But we are pushing the limit of our time here,” Itachi reached up, putting his hand over Kisame’s where it lay on his shoulder. Kisame tangled their fingers together, leaning over and bumping his chin against Itachi’s head.

“Then go,” Asuma nodded. “Keep up the façade. Keep yourselves safe. When you can, if you can, come back.”

“We will,” Itachi bowed slightly to Asuma. “Your father has files somewhere in his office that outline my mission – with his passing, please find them for proof of what I have told you. Get to his office before Danzo. If you do not, then my mission reports are likely to be destroyed so that permission to kill me on sight is obtained.” He started to turn, to move away, but he stopped when Asuma put a hand on his.

“I’ll do my best to make sure you can come home,” Asuma told him.

The fiery will Asuma had inherited, the way he tended to do his best to serve his village, shone through at that moment. Unlike if someone else had said those words, Itachi actually believed him.

Brushing his lips against Kisame’s fingers, he slipped out of the soft hold and went back to where Sasuke was. His little brother had his hands clenched again, a frown on his face. “You have to leave,” Sasuke muttered. “I know.” He shifted, dropping his gaze to the ground. “I heard.”

Itachi pulled him close, dragging his brother into a hug for the first time in almost seven years. “I will come back,” he said. “I will. You just have to believe that.”

For a moment, Sasuke held himself stiffly.

An eternity could have been packed into the seconds that ticked past before Sasuke broke down and hugged him back. It was a little awkward, like hugging an angered cat, but they held onto the moment that reminded them of their childhood. “Keep yourself safe,” Itachi muttered. “Keep your teammates safe – they are your friends, no matter what else you try to tell yourself. Friends are important.”

Sasuke laughed and Itachi pretended, for his sake, that the tears choking the sound weren’t that important. “Like you and Kisame?” he sounded almost teasing with the words.

“Kisame is different,” Itachi rolled his eyes, drawing back from the hug. “If things were different, I suspect we would be settling down to live our lives together. As it is, I will take as much time as I can get with him.” He watched as Sasuke’s nose wrinkled, his tongue sticking out between his teeth for a moment. “This mission of mine is not without risk.”

“I know,” Sasuke rubbed angrily at his cheeks, swiping away the tears roughly. “But you’re good enough to keep yourself alive.”

“It always helps to have a little brother who believes in me,” Itachi smiled at him, then looked over to where Naruto and Gaara were watching them. “Keep your friends close, Sasuke. Make sure you accept that they are your friends.”

With two fingers, he tapped the middle of Sasuke’s forehead.

Groaning, exasperated, Sasuke covered his forehead and rolled his eyes, taking a half-step back. “ _Why,_ ” he hissed the word out. The anger was faked and from the smile that Itachi caught on Sasuke’s face, they both knew the joke.

Something in his chest loosened and he almost wanted to cry as well.

There were bridges he had thought he’d burned. Seeing them rebuilt and whole, if a bit charred around the edges, was a comfort.

He still had family to come home to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> : )
> 
> : D
> 
> So...
> 
> What do you guys think so far? You get two chapters today because I have been gone for so long -- I just started a new job and I am working a lot. Bakeries, right? 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this storypaler still having fun writing it.


	14. Shifting Foundations

They had taken their leave from Konoha, shortly after their talk with Kakashi and Asuma.

With how long they had already been away, there was no more time to delay their return. The Akatsuki would be waiting, would be anticipating their arrival. If Orochimaru had, in any way, contacted the group then they might already be in danger. Their most recent mission report was timed to arrive just before they did – calling the mission a failure, citing an inability to capture the nine-tailed fox Jinchuriki. He was too surrounded by protection, Kakashi had mentioned Jiraiya coming back to the village to teach Naruto some more.

Itachi walked at Kisame’s side, his face drawn back to an expression he had taught himself to wear. If he slipped in front of the other members of the Akatsuki…

Seeming to sense his worry, Kisame reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. This close to the hideout, they didn’t dare speak aloud of what had happened – Zetsu could be anywhere, listening in, and they would never know until or unless he revealed himself. The thought of the plant-affiliated man finding them out was terrifying, especially since they both knew he would kill them without a thought if given the chance.

The others could use rational logic, even when angry, even when murderous.

Zetsu would just have one thing on his mind and that would not be the allowance of survival.

As the hideout came into view, Itachi forced himself to keep from reacting. Something was off, the air itself felt different. If he had been any less vigilant, it might have been brushed off as paranoia, the result of over a month away.

Kisame removed his hand, drawing himself up, his shoulders squared – the image of an angry man, beaten in a fight he had not expected to lose. Itachi let himself look angry as well, the corners of his mouth turning down and his jaw clenching tightly. Anyone looking at them would not expect anything out of the ordinary, if things had gone according to plan.

It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep the expression on his face when Zetsu stepped out of the shadows at the mouth of the cave. “Leader wishes to speak to you,” he told them, his head cocked at an odd angle. “About your mission.”

Only a few steps behind him was a man in an Akatsuki robe, an orange mask on his face.

“And who’s this?” Kisame scoffed, playing angry so beautifully. “When did we recruit orange idiots?”

“Not an idiot,” Zetsu cast an unreadable glance at the orange masked face, impassive as always. “My new _partner_. Leader recruited someone to work alongside me,” he turned back to Itachi. “Two to a team,” he muttered. “There are rules in place, after all.”

Itachi said nothing.

He wanted to – gods, he wanted to – but he didn’t.

Nothing good would come out of recognizing Obito’s chakra, especially not out loud. There was no doubt in Itachi’s mind that his cousin would retaliate, immediately and violently. If he wanted to pretend to be a new recruit, he could do that all he wished. Itachi refused to play his game, to even let his expression shift slightly beyond a small amount of annoyance. “Hn,” he turned away, walking past them. Kisame’s quick pace brought him back to Itachi’s side.

“So,” Kisame kept his voice as quiet as possible, not even inclining his head, giving no indication of speaking to Itachi. “How fucked are we, right now?”

 “Remains to be seen,” Itachi kept his shoulders squared, his spine straight.

If Obito had joined the group, then that meant he wanted a more hands-on approach to his plans, whatever they were. If he had joined up, there was every possibility that Zetsu knew who he was and what he was doing there.

Once they had turned with the hallway, Itachi let his shoulders sag the slightest measure. “We have to treat this as an information leak,” he looked up at Kisame. “We have to act as if this has changed everything without letting them know we know.” He took a deep breath, covering his face with his hands. He was back to wearing his usual uniform, the ponytail and bangs of his Akatsuki-associated cover, but he felt like he was a stranger wearing his own skin.

Going home had been wonderful and detrimental.

The reminder that he still had a home, the revelation of Sasuke knowing, it had been marvelous. The fact that he may very well slip up now, too used to living a day-to-day life where he did not have to worry about it, would potentially kill him.

Kisame pulled him close, resting his chin on Itachi’s head. “We’ll make it,” he nearly growled the words out, making the hairs on the back of Itachi’s neck stand on end. “I have to believe that,” he pulled away, his thumb brushing over Itachi’s cheek, his hand a faint pressure under his jaw. “For our sake, I have to—For _our_ sake,” he clenched his teeth together. “I have to believe we’ll make it.” He pulled away completely, letting his hand drop to his side. “And now we have to go see Leader.”

The hallway to Pein’s quarters was dimly lit, menacing even without the odd silence that had settled over it.

Even the usual noises of Hidan and Deidara messing around in the other rooms of the base were silent. It could have been that Kakuzu and Sasori had finally found ways to shut their partners up, but the distant prickle at the back of Itachi’s neck told him that was not the case. He was being observed, somehow. His every step echoed, the stone bouncing the noises back until they were almost deafening.

Pein called for them to enter only a second after Kisame’s hand stopped knocking and Itachi _knew_ something was wrong.

Sure enough, he was sitting behind his desk, his spine straight and his eyes carefully open. There was something in his gaze, something that made Itachi’s paranoia rachet up several steps, but he still followed along. “Sir,” Kisame inclined his head.

“You two did not have any success in capturing the Nine-Tails,” Pein lifted the corner of a paper Itachi recognized with just the tip of his finger. That was the only movement his body made as he continued to stare at them. “Enlighten me. Tell me why this could not be done – and be quick about it.” He leaned a little further back in his chair. Between his too-relaxed posture looking forced and the way Itachi could practically feel Kisame’s body going tense, he knew this was not going to end well. “I don’t have all day.”

“Well, Sir,” Kisame’s nose wrinkled, baring his teeth. Itachi knew he only had to play up his anger a little – he was a good man, but he did still have a temper at times. Being treated like a failure brought it out in him. “When our target is surrounded by the strongest of the village it lives in, accessing that target is nearly impossible.”

“Explain further.”

“Hatake Kakashi, two of the Legendary Sannin, as well as others of the highest ranks in the village surrounded our target at all times,” Itachi finally spoke up, falling back into the practiced role of disinterested information listing. “When we arrived in Konoha, the Chuunin exams were occurring. This led to an inopportune situation, with disastrous consequences if we proceeded with the mission.”

“And why did assessing this take so long?”

“We were trying to see if a better time would present itself,” Kisame snarled the words out. “If ever there was a time when the Jinchuriki would be left on its own.”

Itachi picked up the cue. “When we deemed the mission a failure, after exhausting all possible options, we returned promptly.”

He performed a small bow, just to seal the performance.

“Very well,” Pein leaned forward in his seat again, pulling a stack of paper towards himself, seemingly ignoring them. He still hadn’t dismissed them, however, and that tugged at Itachi’s attention. They were expected to stand there, on display, until Pein told them they could leave. That he still had them standing there after their story was worrisome. “Sasori, please step forward.”

For a moment, Itachi considered pulling out a kunai and stabbing it through the container holding Sasori’s heart – in the Akatsuki, it was no secret that the man was a puppet. The redhead moved into view, not even glancing at them before he stopped at the edge of the desk and set a scroll down. “This is the information I gleaned from my spy within Orochimaru’s organization,” he cast his eyes towards Itachi, then. “He is a spy I have within Konoha as well, although that is an opportunity that has passed by.”

“And this information states what, exactly?” Pein looked at Itachi as well.

“That Uchiha Itachi was seen speaking with Hatake Kakashi as well as several others,” Sasori responded. “My spy was told this information by Orochimaru himself.”

“With all due respect, _sir,_ ” Kisame barely waited until the other two were done speaking for the moment. “Orochimaru knows what our chakra signatures are like. If he had been completely disguised, like we know he can be, he might have been able to get past our surveillance. If he could get past our surveillance, then he could see us and know us, no matter what disguises we wore. And I, for one, hardly think that the word of that snake is a viable source of information.” He sneered at Sasori. “No matter who he tells it to.”

“Why would he be untruthful to his own team?” Sasori raised an eyebrow. “He would have no reason not to be truthful.”

“Are you really that fucking stupid?” Kisame snorted, shaking his head. “If Orochimaru knew we were there, he knew Itachi was there. From his own words, Orochimaru has wanted to possess Itachi’s body as a vessel. If he informed his team member of whatever lie he concocted and that person did not know any different, then it wouldn’t register as a lie when you gave them a cocktail of drugs to make them tell the truth. He could then, effectively, say anything he wanted to his team member and have it come across to you as the truth.”

Sasori considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Very well.” He allowed. “You are right. I would not know, in that instance.”

“The three of you are dismissed,” Pein said casually, not looking at them anymore. His papers had gained his interest once more. “Report tomorrow for new assignments. We also have a new member, though I believe you may have met him already. I asked Zetsu to wait outside for the two of you, his new partner has refused to leave his side since joining him.”

Sasori bowed first, then turned and left.

Kisame moved next and Itachi followed, ignoring the almost wild surge of adrenaline rising up inside him.

They had somehow managed to make it through that.

 

It was dark throughout the entirety of the base when Itachi woke up.

He couldn’t identify why, the room too dark to see anything, but he could hear someone there. He and Kisame had taken the risk of sleeping in the same bed, too relieved to do anything else. The thought of sleeping alone had been panic-inducing, especially after the meeting with Pein and Sasori.

“Wake up,” came the rough growl of a voice that Itachi actually knew. “I have been waiting for several minutes already.”

Next to him, Kisame sat bolt upright, already reaching for Samehada as he moved.

“Calm down,” Kakuzu’s exasperation was easy to hear. “And wake up. Get up, too. I’m not here to do anything to you, I’m here to get your idiotic asses out before the danger comes too close again.” A light flared to life, a candle that Kakuzu set down on the table next to Itachi’s usual bed. “Our Leader suspects something about you two, though he isn’t quite sure what it is.”

“Wait, what?” Kisame blinked a couple of times, yawning hard enough to pop his jaw. “What’s happening?”

“The two of you arrived back late and, even without much proof against you, Pein suspects something. What Sasori brought him is almost not enough, but I could hear him planning,” Kakuzu sighed. “You two idiots managed to get caught up in something too big to handle on your own. Between what Tobi has been telling him and what Sasori brought back, the two of you are in _danger_.” He leaned down and grabbed two packs, heavier than the ones they usually used when going on missions. “You need to leave.”

He hesitated, then looked at Kisame. “Now.”

“Wait,” Kisame said again. “If we’re in danger, why would you be helping us?”

With a snort, Kakuzu shook his head. “I’ve hitched my wagon to this team – no going back now. I regret almost nothing about my life. I do, however, have a debt to pay off,” he dropped the packs on the bed behind him. “And I hate having a debt attached to my name. You saved my life,” Kakuzu nodded at Kisame. “After this, consider us even. You saved me and something I once considered near and dear to me. I am returning the favor – the two of you have an hour to get whatever you plan on taking and leave.”

“You are,” Kisame shuffled out from under the blankets, grabbing for his shirt. “A good man, Kakuzu.”

“If you ever say that again, I will hunt you down and rip your spine out of your body,” Kakuzu growled the words out. “Hidan is on duty at the door tonight. I can convince him to step away and let me take over, but his shift ends in an hour, at which time someone will come and replace me. If the two of you are not out of here by that time, you are going to suffer for it.”

Itachi practically hurled himself out of the bed, already moving to gather what little personal belongings he had accrued over the years of living in the base. “You have my thanks for this,” he half-bowed towards Kakuzu, stuffing his things into another bag.

“The bags I packed for you have rations and some money,” Kakuzu ignored his thanks, which was to be expected. The man hated emotional reactions, preferred not to be involved in them when he could. “There are nondescript jackets, as well. Warm and serviceable, non-affiliated with the organization. They should be enough to last you through a hard winter – the money will as well, if you spend it wisely. Take the less used paths away from the base – that is as much help as I can give you. If I do anything else, then there will be suspicions cast upon me.”

“Don’t risk your reputation to help us,” Kisame waved him off. “Thank you for what you have done.”

Kakuzu inclined his head gently, then left the room.

“What did you do for him?” Itachi looked over at his partner as he carefully rolled up a scroll and settled it into the bag in front of him. “This is more than the effort I would expect from him, even for saving his life.”

“Way before your time,” Kisame scooped up a weapon pouch, tying it around his thigh as he hopped into the rest of his pants. “Kakuzu used to be my partner and I saved his ass from dying. The way he avoids death is complicated and he hadn’t been able to fix it up since using it. The other thing I saved wasn’t a thing, so much – he had a brother.”

“A brother?”

“Yeah,” Kisame paused, shuffling awkwardly as he buttoned his pants and stood up straight. “I went with him on a mission he had put forth. On the way back from it, we met up with his brother. Would have been his little brother, once, but Kakuzu is an immortal and his brother was in his eighties at the time.”

The image fell into place and Itachi almost smiled at the thought. Somewhere, deep under the arrogance and money-lust, there was something left of his eroded moral center. Kakuzu had chosen to help them.

He had a feeling it was the last help they would get for some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how about Kakuzu, huh?
> 
> Anyway. 
> 
> I would like to mention, I don't think Itachi will be getting sick in this timeline. I didn't like it in the first place, it felt haphazard and shoved in at the end in the original story.


	15. Preparation (Run)

As they crept further and further from the base, Itachi couldn’t help but feel like they had narrowly dodged a much worse fate.

Kakuzu had stood by, watching as they left, with Hidan’s scythe at his side. The other immortal had been easy to convince to leave, Kakuzu had said. Hidan had always hated taking the watch, preferring to sleep or do just about anything else. Escaping it must have been a welcome relief, for him. If he was caught, if he was questioned, Kakuzu would be in more trouble than he might have bargained for.

But he always weighed the costs, the price of doing something versus the price of the results if he didn’t.

For him to have helped them, let them run in the middle of the night, he had to have weighed the costs and the outcomes. Even as he turned that thought over in his mind, examined it from every angle, Itachi pulled his coat closer to himself, shivering as a chill settled as dawn approached. They would need to find some place to rest, soon enough. They had only gotten an hour or two of rest after the day they had, the meeting with Pein and Sasori unsettling their nerves.

And that was after the return to base, as fast as they could go.

Just ahead of him, Kisame turned to look back. “Itachi?” he slowed his steps a fraction, falling in line with Itachi and taking his hand in his own. “We lucked out, back there.”

“I am aware,” Itachi nodded.

“What are we going to do, now?” Kisame’s voice was hardened, the way he spoke when he was truly worried over something. “Konoha is currently under attack, Orochimaru seems to have retreated for now but we don’t know his plans.”

“I know,” Itachi squeezed Kisame’s hand. “Neither of our villages are any sort of option.”

If they wandered into Konoha, there was every chance that Danzo would have them attacked, killed on sight. If Asuma hadn’t actually gotten to the papers with Itachi’s mission on them, then Itachi was still considered a traitor to the village. If Danzo had gotten there first, then there was every chance that there was now an even bigger price on his head from his home.

Kisame stopped in his tracks, glancing back the way they had come. His breath turned to fog in the air, his hands coming up to Itachi’s shoulders. “We can do this?”

“I—” Itachi looked up, meeting his eyes.

His breath caught in his chest as he saw the look in Kisame’s eyes. The man had always been a bigger worrier than he wanted to let on, had always felt strongly about things in a way he had tried to bury. Being a part of Akatsuki had always been difficult for him, having to follow their orders when he knew what their eventual goal was. That had been something he had admitted to Itachi in their early days as partners.

Itachi nodded, suddenly certain of his answer. “Not only can we do this,” he reached up, curving his hands over the back of Kisame’s neck. “But we can do this together.”

Kisame chuckled, then leaned in and down, dropping his forehead to the soft spot between Itachi’s shoulder and neck. “Good,” he muttered. “I can’t do this alone. This isn’t something that _can_ be done alone – doing this alone would destroy me.”

“I am not asking you to do this alone,” Itachi pulled back, moving his hand to Kisame’s chin, meeting his eyes again. “I am asking you to help me. At times, there may need to be orders issued. Our causes have almost always aligned, all I am asking is that it continue.” He nodded when Kisame’s eyes flicked over his face, his jaw clenching for a moment. “I am asking you to follow me. I am asking you to not let me do this alone.”

“As it has always been,” Kisame settled on his knees on the ground, only barely shorter than Itachi. “I would follow you to the end.”

Itachi smiled, a faint and weak thing, before he pulled the man’s face towards him and pressed their lips together. The kiss was short, chaste – they had no idea how much time they had, they were still out in the open, there was no time for anything else in such an unsecured area – but it sent a shot of warmth ricocheting through his body. Kisame had been devoted to his cause since they had found out about each other.

As long as he had the man beside him, he felt like he could do anything.

Growing up, attachment had been dangerous. Knowing someone, caring for them, loving them, anything to do with another being was a weakness, a soft spot. Softness had been put at a premium and never given away for free. Caring for another was a sign of failing, of loss to come.

His experience with Shisui had been a reminder of that. Danzo had taken so much from him, had taken almost everything from him.

He had made a deal with a devil to keep his little brother safe.

Itachi stood up a little straighter, imagining his spine was iron. As they continued on their path, he smiled. There had been deals made and promises broken and families torn apart – his family had suffered, Sasuke had been damaged. Itachi had made a deal with Danzo that Sasuke was to be kept safe, kept away from those who would damage him. With the attack on the Chuunin exams, a promise of sorts had been broken.

Orochimaru should not have been able to get into Konoha, not even in a disguise.

Danzo’s word had been proven faulty. His promise to keep Sasuke safe had fallen through. The deal made with a devil had been broken.

And now Itachi could collect on it.

He did not relish war. He did not wish for blood. There was a part of him that was exhausted by what he had done, what he still had to do. A part of him that very much wished he could stop where he was, lay down his arms, and let himself go. At night, his nightmares pulled at him until he would wake up with a coldness in his chest and a panic in his mind.

But for Danzo, he could be persuaded to want blood to spill.

The man was a vile monster, he used whoever he came across in his vendettas and actions as he saw fit. Yamato had been under his thumb, for a time, and he had come out of it in an almost-broken state.

He had, in fact, been the reason Itachi had refused to trust Danzo.

After walking in silence for some time, Itachi looked up to where Kisame walked at his side. There were still things to plan, deeds to carry out, pleas to make, but he was not alone in this. They were out of a place to hide, out of time for quiet planning, out of serenity to claim and unwilling to compromise on what they could have.

They were together.

And there were things needing to be done.

As it always had been, as it likely always would be.

 

By the time they found a place to set up camp, they were miles away from the Akatsuki base.

They had walked as long as possible before settling down, unwilling to stop but even more unwilling to let their bodies run down. Itachi got started on making a fire while Kisame set up traps around their camp. Their eyes met, occasionally, and Itachi felt a small smile on his lips when the bigger man would pause, staring at him with a happy gleam in his eyes. Things would be rough, for a time – they were on the run from multiple things, after all. There was no home to be had, no safety to be found.

But they were together.

With the fire set up, Itachi sat down in front of it, letting his eyes close as he meditated for a few minutes. He could hear Kisame, just a handful of feet away, as he strung wire around the surrounding trees. Ankle-height traps that would catch the unwary.

Where would they be able to go?

Konoha was a guaranteed disaster, if they sought refuge there. With the question of whether Danzo had found Itachi’s mission paperwork before Asuma, they might be facing only a future of death. They may be a chance of safety, but the risk was far greater than the potential reward. Besides, with Danzo still residing in the village, Konoha was a danger with or without the man finding Itachi’s papers first.

Mist had never been an option – unlike Itachi, Kisame had no mission paperwork tucked into a leader’s office. His mission had been one of public opinion, a removal of a leader with no care for his people.

The other villages were similarly dismissed, given only perfunctory thought before Itachi shook his head and moved on. Iwa was in ashes, thanks to Deidara, incapable of being a support system for them. Too much damage, the injuries too fresh still. They had been removed as a functioning village, were still recovering.

Similar thoughts followed about the others until Itachi came upon the last in his mental list.

Suna.

The previous home of Sasori, true enough, but a well-built village. Close enough to Konoha that it could function well as a base for them, far enough away that interaction with those who knew him would be minimal. Kisame would stand out but there were always people moving around, moving through. With enough twisting of words, they could make it work.

Well-guarded, of course.

Suna was the home of Gaara, with enough guards to make the son of the late Kazekage safe even from himself. They still had the traveling papers that the Akatsuki had put together for them – even if they were soon to be listed as violent and dangerous, they would serve well enough to get the two of them into Suna.

Getting out again might pose a problem, but getting in would be no issue.

Kisame’s heat settled at his side and Itachi leaned into him without opening his eyes. “We should head to Suna,” he turned his face so that his cheek was pressed into Kisame’s bicep.

“Seems like a good option,” Kisame chuckled. When Itachi finally looked at him, he grinned – it was a softer expression, less the toothy threat he usually wore, more of the gentleness he had cultivated when no one else was looking. Itachi had seen so much of it when they had been in Konoha, together, undercover, living a life they would otherwise never have lived. “Any particular reason?”

“Well-guarded, well-defended, no one would think to look there for us,” Itachi smiled at him when he raised a hand and started carding his fingers through Itachi’s hair. After a minute, he leaned forward and pulled out Itachi’s hair tie, letting the length of it fall down. “Safe enough to operate a base in. We must have somewhere to stay while we plan.” He hummed as Kisame’s fingers began massaging at his scalp. “Oh…”

“Itachi, can I—” he cut himself off.

One day, Itachi would have him knowing he could. Kisame still asked whenever he wanted something from Itachi – a kiss, a moment, a hand on his body – and Itachi had promised himself he would make sure the man knew he could.

Kisame could ask almost anything of him and he would give it.

Slowly, not wanting to scare him off, Itachi sat up and climbed into his lap, taking his face in his hands. Up close, the yellow of Kisame’s eyes was harsh but somehow muted by the wonder in them. The expression made him lose some of the stress on his face, the worry that had aged him beyond his years. “Yes,” Itachi nodded, leaning in slowly. “If I can, then _yes._ ”

He pressed their lips together, pressed his body against Kisame’s, pressed in closer until there was nothing between them. He adjusted slightly, tilting his head a little more, then hummed when Kisame groaned, a hand landing on Itachi’s back.

His hand clenched, sliding down to settle firmly on his backside, pulling him fractionally closer.

When the kiss broke, air having become a necessity, Kisame took a deep breath and nodded. “That was what I wanted, yeah,” he chuckled, hesitated for a moment, then leaned in again. He left small, clumsy kisses all over Itachi’s face, his free hand coming to rest on the back of Itachi’s thigh, helping him stay upright. “Gods, how I…How am I this lucky?”

Itachi smiled at him again, brushing their noses together. “If you are lucky, I am blessed with a miracle,” he curled his arms around Kisame’s shoulders.

The dawn would bring troubles, would bring more things to consider. Their little camp was likely not far enough away, was likely still in dangerous territory, but they did not have to consider that for the moment. In the moment, there was only them, only each other.

Even if they had nothing else, they had each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my update schedule for this is a little wonky now and I am sorry. I've got a new job that is...Stressful but I love it? I'm tired and exhausted and I am worried about my boys -- this story is rewriting the entire series and I need to read the timeline to establish new events. This means it requires more attention than my Supernatural Creatures AU.
> 
> So yeah -- I'm still updating, but it's slowed down.


	16. New Arrivals

Suna was so different from his home village that it almost left him spinning.

Kisame couldn’t help looking at everything as he and Itachi moved through the small market they had managed to find. The colors of the village tended more towards reds and browns, the people surprising him by wearing black in the middle of a desert. He had known about the red hair, having seen Sasori’s true body before, but nothing could have prepared him for what the village was actually going to look like.

Itachi walked at his side, staying close. Whenever his partner seemed a bit overwhelmed, Kisame found a reason to touch him. A gentle hand on his shoulder, a few fingers pressed against his wrist. Each touch seemed to soothe something in him, smooth down the ruffled feathers caused by a too-crowded place.

After a few stops, asking the right questions, they ended up with the name of a man they could speak to about renting a small apartment in the village. They ended up with the locations of different shops, places to find clothes, places to get food. Nothing stirred the worry in Kisame’s gut, so things seemed to be going alright. It was when they got a little closer to the center of the village that anything was different.

A young kunoichi approached them.

She wore a purple outfit with uneven light armor underneath, a large fan strapped to her back. Her hair was pulled into four different tails on the back of her head, her eyes narrowed as she stopped in front of them. “My brother wants to speak with you,” was all she said before turning on her heel and waving for them to follow.

Sharing a glance with Itachi, Kisame frowned.

With a deep breath, Itachi nodded and took his hand for a moment, squeezing tightly. He nodded again and they followed the path of the girl, neither of them talking. She led them to a house that was larger than the others, stopping at the door. “The descriptions he gave me were very clear,” she spoke again. “Very odd, but very clear. Things are out of sorts, right now, we’re still rearranging after the death of our father, but he was adamant that he speak with you again, if you ever returned to Konoha and he knew about it. Or if you ever showed up here.”

She smirked, a small huff of laughter following. “I’m glad he thought to include that part.”

“Who is your brother?” Itachi asked after a moment. From the way he said it, Kisame had a feeling he already knew – the glint in his eyes, when paired with the small tilt upward at the corner of his mouth said he knew.

“If you could wait here for a minute,” the girl ducked inside the building without giving them a chance to answer.

Kisame took a deep breath, leaning back against the wall of the house, crossing his arms. Itachi stood at his side, his cheek just a few hairs away from being pressed against Kisame’s arm. They had decided to keep themselves from being too intimate in public, for now. If someone recognized them and saw a fondness between them, there was an immediate threat they could carry out when fighting one of them.

They had refused to be each other’s weaknesses, to be the thing that stopped the other in their tracks.

It was killing him, just a little, to have Itachi so close and so far away at the same time. If and when they achieved peace in their lives, he was going to find them a little house to live in, somewhere. Itachi could have the quiet life he wanted, doing his research and his writing, planting the garden he sometimes spoke of.

Kisame could make a living in some way, he was adaptable, but his goals were mainly making sure Itachi got some rest.

His life had been too full of chaos, war, and bloodshed.

After a few minutes, the girl reappeared, a full smile on her face as she was followed by a smaller boy. A boy with red hair that Kisame recognized instantly, having seen him for a short time. He had been unhinged, the last time Kisame had seen him, but he still recognized him. Gaara seemed to recognize them as well, a small smile on his face as he stood in front of them. With the blonde kunoichi at his side, Kisame suddenly recognized her as well – he had only seen her for a few seconds, at the Chuunin exams.

“It is good to see the two of you again,” Gaara lifted his chin.

Something about him seemed softer, like he had changed from the last time they had seen him. The circles around his eyes were smaller, like he’d actually managed to get some rest. Itachi put a hand over his mouth, covering the smile on his own lips. “I had hoped you would be alright,” he told the Jinchuriki. “It is good to see that my hopes were well-founded.”

The kunoichi clasped her hands behind her back and Kisame realized why he hadn’t recognized her – the same differences he could see in Gaara, he could also see them in her. Like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

From both of them.

She had mentioned the death of their father.

Gaara had been the Kazekage’s son and Orochimaru had disguised himself as the Kazekage during the exam, had used it to get close enough to kill the Hokage. As far as Kisame knew, the ruling of the village of Suna was familial, rather than elected. Practically a monarchy.

The kunoichi did not wear the marks, the robes, of someone who had been chosen as the next leader.

“This is Temari, by the way,” Gaara caught his attention again, introducing his sister. When another person came out of the house, Kisame raised an eyebrow at them. The marks on his face were familiar, though he wasn’t wearing the hood Kisame remembered seeing him in. “And this is Kankuro. They’re my siblings.”

He said it with some glee, like he was actually happy to be introducing them as such.

Kankuro’s grin was a little awkward, but whole-hearted as he nodded. “Gaara told us about you guys,” he crossed his arms, almost mimicking Kisame’s pose as he leaned back against the wall of the house as well. “Thank you.”

Temari nodded. “If the two of you hadn’t…I mean…” she looked away for a moment, then nodded again. “Gaara scared us. A lot.” She put a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “But what you did—you got him talking to someone. You gave him a connection to someone like him. You got him to trust us again,” she met Itachi’s eyes, letting out a deep breath. “I haven’t been able to talk directly to my little brother since he was a toddler.”

“Your father’s doing?” Itachi quirked an eyebrow up.

“In part,” Kankuro grimaced.

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her hand slipping from Gaara’s shoulder, as Temari lifted her chin. “A lot of fear,” she added.

“Talking to Naruto helped,” Itachi smiled, a small thing that was mostly just a tilt of the corners of his mouth. “He seems to have been a good influence on my brother as well. Friends are good to have,” he turned to Gaara. “It is good to see that you are recovering from what was done to you, what the voice in your head has been whispering.”

For a moment, Gaara’s eyes seemed to darken. After a moment, he nodded, a small smile on his own face, like he wasn’t used to the muscles moving in that way. “This is my family,” he looked at his siblings. “The ones who’ve cared about my existence and well-being.”

“Shit-scared, but still watched over him,” Kankuro nodded. “We’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks now.”

“Six weeks since Itachi put himself between your attack and his little brother seems to have done you some good,” Kisame glanced between the three siblings, grinning. “I take it you’ve been talking with Naruto, as well?”

“He comes to see us, sometimes,” Gaara nodded. “Him and the rest of his team.”

He paused, lifting his head a little higher as he looked at Kisame and Itachi. His eyes widened, slightly, and he nodded. “There was something I had to tell you,” he cleared his throat. “The papers have been found. They are unsure whether or not all of them are there, but they have been found.”

Kisame could only see how much of a weight had been lifted off Itachi’s shoulders with those words said out loud because he had known him for so long. The small wrinkle between his eyes smoothed, just a touch, and his shoulders pulled back a fraction. To anyone else, nothing would have appeared to have happened – to Kisame, it was as clear as day how much those words had relieved Itachi. “His mission orders,” he chuckled. “Good. As long as the location of those is known, then everything runs a little more smoothly.”

“The two of you are planning on being here for a while?” Temari looked at them again.

“If we can,” Kisame nodded. “We had to drop everything and run from the group we were members of. We were found out.”

“If not entirely, then at the very least cast into suspicion. Our positions became compromised and we had to flee. Seeking asylum in your village seemed to be our best option,” Itachi inclined his head. “If we may.”

“We’ll keep you,” Gaara nodded. “I owe you a debt.”

“Besides, as the next Kazekage, he kind of makes the rules.” Kankuro shrugged. “It’s not official, yet, we’re still working on the details, but he’s the next in line. Neither Temari nor I wanted the job – we’ll help him where we can, she’s going to be his advisor, I’m going to be the head of security – but we just want some time to be…Anything but what our father wanted.”

The three of them, not just Gaara, were all marked with the borderline abuse of their father. It made Kisame want to hack the man into pieces.

Given that the man was already dead, he had lost his chance at that.

Kankuro met his eyes and nodded, just once. He could see the protective similarities between them, Kisame guessed. He could see how they were similar, could see how their lives had been reshaped dramatically to practically revolve around someone they cared about. Kankuro’s had been entirely about his siblings – a big difference, Kisame had to guess, from not caring about them at all – and he seemed to be settling into the role with an ease. From the way he was practically orbiting around the two of them, like he was anticipating any attacks that may come, he would do well at it.

The sibling-similar temper he could see running through all three of them might make Temari’s future job a little harder, but they would do well.

A family repaired by the removal of one of the members. Kisame glanced at Itachi as he thought that, thinking about how it related to his partner as well. Sasuke had been so angry when Kisame had first seen him, a glare from eyes too tired to do much else. The removal of the rest of their clan seemed to have forged a bond in iron, of sorts.

Before that train of thought could get much further, Itachi put a hand on his elbow, meeting his eyes and tilting his head.

He followed quietly after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to point out -- we haven't completely detached from the timeline, just yet. We're still following gently along.
> 
> That's about to change. Kisame and Itachi don't want fate to drag them along to their deaths, so they're taking it into their own hands.
> 
> Also: The Sand Siblings' father was abusive, Fight Me. The way the three were separated out and taught to fear their little brother and the way Gaara had no support system is enough for me to have that headcanon still after fourteen years. The fact that the three of them get along well after the death of the previous Kazekage is enough for me. 
> 
> And one more Also: Gaara and his siblings are keeping Kisame and Itachi a secret. If they're found out, bad things happen, but they know those two need protection.


	17. Of Sinking Ships (Whispered News)

Itachi spent most of his days wandering through the village by whatever paths he could find.

He knew that, had seen his partner wander off with determination in his eyes. The maps, the papers hanging on the walls of their rooms, were evidence of what he was spending his time doing. With his Sharingan, Itachi was perfectly mapping Suna, along with any and all escape routes they might need. Contingency plan upon contingency plan, all revolving around making sure they could get out if they needed to – out of their apartment, out of the district they were in, out of Suna if they had to.

With their ability to listen in on the Akatsuki gone, he had started over-planning everything.

“Itachi?” Kisame walked out onto the balcony of their apartment, watching him as he stared off into the distance. “Is everything alright?”

“It feels as if this all has been too easy,” Itachi whispered as he continued to keep his eyes on the horizon. “Like we’ve only barely gotten away by the skin of our teeth – why are we safe here?” he finally turned to look at Kisame, his hands curled with white-knuckles on the railing. “How have we not seen anyone? How have we not been located, followed?”

He could understand the worry.

It was how he felt, after all. The silence from the Akatsuki was a little concerning – he’d been a member for so _long_ , he knew how they operated. They should have been pursued, should have been chased down and attacked at some point. That they weren’t was great, but it set something knife-like and panicked rushing through his gut. “Itachi,” he barely got his name out, raising a hand to rest it on his partner’s shoulder, before Itachi had fairly launched himself into Kisame’s arms.

The younger man had turned out to be fairly physically demonstrative.

His hands settled on Kisame’s back, on either side of his spine, while his face was tucked into the curve of his neck. “I just want to feel _safe_ ,” Itachi hissed the words out.

If Kisame could have dismantled the systems that had made their lives this way, he would do so without an ounce of hesitance. Itachi deserved peace, deserved a world and a life where he didn’t have to look over his shoulder, didn’t have to fight to survive. His partner – his _love –_ deserved a small house with a garden and sunlight and some time to just exist without having to worry about impending war. “I know,” Kisame muttered because he couldn’t say anything else right then. “I _know._ ” He pressed his lips to Itachi’s hair.

If he promised anything, the words would sound hollow and useless, would taste like ash in his mouth. If he told Itachi he loved him, right then, it would come across as brushing the issue off or it would come across as him accepting an inevitable death.

All he could do was allow Itachi to say those words, accept them as they came.

Itachi pressed a little closer, stretching his body out against Kisame’s, before raising his arms and putting them around Kisame’s neck. From that position, he took a long, deep breath and held it before letting it out slowly. It would have seemed like almost nothing to anyone else, but Kisame knew what it meant.

He had spent so long learning to read the subtle language of Itachi’s body. How could he _not_ know?

One long sigh, with his face pressed into Kisame’s neck.

Itachi was overwhelmed and _scared_.

It was not often that the Uchiha was afraid, but when he was – Kisame had learned to be afraid as well. If Itachi was showing a softness, any sort of emotional drain on himself, it meant that he didn’t know what to do.

“How much of Suna have you got mapped?” Kisame asked after a couple of minutes, letting Itachi curl up against him. He propped himself against the railing, dragging his fingers gently through Itachi’s hair. Goal one: distract Itachi. Wasn’t an easy task, always took some doing, but he could. Slantwise distractions worked best, something related to his worries but distant enough to jerk his train of thought from one track to another.

“Almost all of it,” Itachi answered eventually, a slow breeze catching the ends of his hair and flipping them up. While in Suna, he had taken to wearing most of his hair up in a bun, the rest hanging down around his neck. It kept the weight of it off of his neck while still giving some measure of protection against the desert sun. Personally, Kisame thought it suited him, made him look softer. If he could just get the man to wear the reading glasses he knew Itachi needed, he suspected it would be impossible for him to keep his hands off. “I still have to map around the outer edges of it, but that is best done at night, when the guards are less often patrolling.”

“Alright,” Kisame reached up and brushed a section of hair behind Itachi’s ear. Even without the glasses, Itachi was still impossible for him to resist. He had started to catch on to the fact that Itachi would allow him to touch at almost any moment, as well. It was something of a relief. “How many escape routes?”

“Without the borders mapped, it is harder to estimate,” Itachi pulled away, a small smile on his lips as he looked up at Kisame. “But I have mapped out a few promising routes.”

“By ‘a few’, do you, in fact, mean no less than twenty?”

The soft pink color of Itachi’s face, colored by a faint embarrassment, was a hell of a thing as well. “Perhaps,” the Uchiha allowed. His smile grew and he stared at Kisame in a way he had started getting used to.

It had taken a bit of that, as well as a bit of figuring out, but he had realized that when Itachi looked at him, his eyes were full of wonder. Full of happiness and wonder and something that Kisame had realized was _adoration._ A look like that, aimed at him, was something he hadn’t ever seen before. Even in his home village, he had never been pursued romantically. Sure, he’d slept with people, but there was a difference between post-mission fucks and the way Itachi looked at him.

The look in his eyes spoke of something long-term, settled and warm and comforting. It spoke of cold nights spent together in bed and slow mornings watching the sunrise.

He’d never really loved anyone, before.

Even if this was the only peace they would get for a long time, he would take it. He would wrap his hands in every single shred of peace and quiet and safety and he would drag it closer and hold it longer so that Itachi would feel safe. So that Itachi would be happy. Once this was all over, Kisame would find a way to recreate what peace they had found for him – the plans were there, after all. A house, a garden, a couple of cats, something soft and happy and quiet.

Peace was in short supply, but he would damn the entire world if it meant giving Itachi a sanctuary.

 

As with so many things, their peace only lasted so long.

 

They had been in Suna a month – Gaara had been announced as the future Kazekage, the regent stepping down to allow the boy to become the leader.

His people, the will of Suna, had been shocked at first.

The child they had been warned about, warned _against,_ stepping in to lead them. It had been a shock, Kisame imagined. Still, they had gotten used to the news, had started to welcome the idea. It was helped along, in no small part, by the fact that Gaara was often seen around the village, flanked by his siblings. Here a repaired roof, a wave of sand hoisting the materials into place and attaching them firmly, there a retrieved toy. Small acts, at first, little things that made the peoples’ opinion of him skyrocket.

There had been a collapse of a building project, a disaster at exactly the wrong moment.

Thirty people on the site of the building going up had been injured immediately. One had died from the impact of several tons of material landing on her. She had been the only fatality, thanks to Gaara hearing of the news. The boy had arrived, had listened to descriptions of the problem, then used his sand to reach in and pull the mess apart until those trapped inside and underneath could be rescued.

The tight reins he had on his temper seemed to be settling the uneasy nerves of the village and that, Kisame had to laugh as he looked at the crowd assembled, was probably why they were here now.

The induction of the newest Kazekage.

A momentous occasion, one Gaara had invited them to come to. They had chosen a perch out of the way, watching it happen from far enough away that recognition would not occur but close enough for Kisame to be able to nod when Gaara glanced at them. 

Everything had been going so well when the peace was, at least internally, shattered.

Sitting on the wall, near the back of the crowd, Kisame spotted something that instantly sent shivers of panic down his spine.

One of Deidara’s clay creatures, having landed probably when the crowd stood up, taking advantage of the distraction. With a small movement, barely even turning his head, Kisame brushed his knuckles against Itachi’s wrist, glancing towards the clay creature with just his eyes. Itachi’s gaze moved as well, his head angled towards the ceremony taking place. A flash of something that made Kisame want to kiss him went flickering through his eyes before he smoothed his expression flat again.

Not too far away from the clay creature, Kisame spotted something else.

A person.

They were wearing the traditional clothing of Suna, they shouldn’t have looked out of place, but the way they held themself was odd. Whoever it was, they moved like they were expecting a fight – like they were ready to fight back.

_Fuck._

Careful to keep his voice barely above a breath, Kisame leaned a little into Itachi’s personal space. “Sasori,” he let the word, the _name_ , speak for itself. Itachi’s eyes were already searching, already picking the puppet master out of the background. With Deidara’s clay present, that was the only real option for who the mystery person was. The Akatsuki didn’t shuffle around partners, not unless more than one set was necessary for a mission.

Itachi’s fingers were a bar around his wrist, dragging his attention back as he tilted his head one way, flicking a finger in the other.

The message was clear: I’ll go this way, you go that way. Split up.

Kisame nodded, a soft incline of his head, and stepped away from his partner. They couldn’t be lovers, right now, they had to focus on the danger. It couldn’t be a coincidence that, on the day Gaara was inducted as the Kazekage, Deidara’s clay creatures and Sasori were in the village.

The Akatsuki was speeding up the retrieval of the Jinchuriki. They would need to check in with Konoha, soon enough.

Naruto would be targeted as well.

As Kisame made his way over to Sasori, he spotted Itachi moving past Temari and Kankuro where they stood in attendance to their brother. He barely paused, but Kisame saw his mouth open a fraction as he moved away from them.

Whatever he said, they both went a little stiff as he walked away.

The process of approaching Sasori seemed to take an eternity, but Kisame eventually stood behind him. When he dropped a hand onto the shoulder in front of him, he suspected it had to be a trap.

Instead, what happened was two hands that looked delicate compared to Kisame’s came up and pushed the hood he wore back. For the first time since leaving the Akatsuki, Kisame came face to face with Sasori’s real face – something that had been rare, even when he had been a member of the organization. “The two of you have thrown us into something like chaos,” Sasori glanced towards the stage, watching as Kankuro spoke with a few of the guards.

With a hand on Samehada’s hilt, Kisame frowned, tightening the hand clenched on Sasori’s shoulder. It wouldn’t do anything unless he squeezed a little harder and broke the puppet master’s joint, but it made him feel a little better. “Why are you _here_ , Sasori?”

“If you could be a little _quieter_ ,” Sasori narrowed his eyes. It was only slightly different from his usual expression, so different from the madness Kisame knew he was driven by. “I am here because I have a job to do. I am supposed to retrieve a Jinchuriki. You are here, I imagine, because you’re trying to keep that from happening – as well as plan ahead.” He glanced towards his partner’s method of spying while not being physically close-by. “Deidara has started to refuse to be involved in missions. His only reason for being in the Akatsuki was to gather enough power to defeat your partner.”

For all that he was acting like he was talking about the weather, unbothered, Kisame could see deeper into his words.

Deidara had been driven by a need to beat Itachi in a fight. Pein was urged on by the power gathered under his hands. Kakuzu was driven by greed, Hidan by his faith and the unfettered access to victims given to him by being a part of the Akatsuki.

With their abandoning the group, Itachi and Kisame had very likely thrown the entire balance off.

Kakuzu had helped them leave, sure, but Deidara had lost the future fight he’d wanted. Pein had lost two of the more powerful members in one move. With them gone, running away, Pein would have locked down the missions to absolute necessity – Hidan would be locked away in the base, kept from causing his usual attention-grabbing mayhem.

Pein’s power-hunger would have been stymied by his pawns rebelling against his control. He would be lost and almost confused without the backing of the entire group.

In one simple move, Kisame and Itachi had probably half-dismantled the Akatsuki.

“I have been chosen as part of the Suna mission because of my prior knowledge of the village,” Sasori’s voice filtered through his thoughts. “But I do not think I can go through with this mission if I do not know we will be successful.”

His eyes were pinned to the stage.

Now that he thought about it, Kisame frowned as he followed his line of sight, Sasori looked related to the siblings. Kankuro had the shape of his eyes, Temari the line of his jaw. Gaara’s coloring was the most similar, a shade or two too dark to match exactly.

The old lady standing in as Gaara’s family had her hands clasped together in front of her. Her lined, aged face was what Sasori was focusing on the most.

“The Akatsuki is a sinking ship,” Kisame muttered. “You’d do better jumping into the water than going down with it.”

Sasori’s eyes flicked over to him, followed a second later by his head turning as well. “You would know about sinking ships,” he spoke quietly. On his other side, Itachi had made his way over, carefully avoiding the gaze of the spying clay creation. “The two of you played as rats – always the first ones off.” He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Smart rats, you are. From what I have seen, the Akatsuki will be finished before the year is out. There will be no success in our endeavor.”

He opened his eyes again. “And it is nothing personal, but I will have to report back that I saw you here.”

“Understood,” Itachi nodded, pulling his sword from the sheath he wore on his back. He held it at the ready, as if he was waiting for a countdown, then lunged forward and slashed at Sasori, driving the puppet master back. “Kisame, the spy—”

“Got it!” Kisame rushed forward, picking it up in one hand and lobbing it as hard as he could, assisted by chakra, into the vast desert emptiness. Once it was airborne, he lashed out a hand, a kunai hitting dead-center of it and forcing it to explode. With that done, the small explosion drowning out the noises of the crowd and catching the attention of the civilians, he turned on his heel and headed towards where Itachi had driven Sasori back.

Before he could get there, the man nodded at them both before disappearing in a violent wave of sand.

“ _Shit_ ,” Kisame muttered.

If the Akatsuki was on the verge of falling apart, Pein would first lock down the members, then focus on destroying those who could spill their secrets. Kisame had lived through it once, back when he had first joined. Five members had been cut down, only he, Kakuzu, Orochimaru, and Sasori remaining.   

Itachi met his eyes, nodding quickly.

It seemed their time in Suna had come to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice the chapter count is finalized. 
> 
> This is not the end of the story. I want this section to be complete for the sake of how the story is flowing -- I have others I want to focus on and there are other POVs to include in a story that rewrites the entire timeline. 
> 
> This is _far_ from over. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also: Sasori, what's got you holding back if you're not certain the Akatsuki will win? That slight bit of attachment through your insanity to what's left of your family? (Sorry, I am going to be including all the headcanons I still have after fourteen years.)


	18. Exit Stage Right

Leaving another place that had become a comfort felt like reopening an old wound.

Itachi looked up from the notes he was writing down, watching as Kankuro read over his shoulder. They were preparing to leave, had chosen to slip away in the middle of the night, and the siblings had chosen to see them off. Baki, their sensei, was watching over them with careful eyes, occasionally turning his glance towards the seemingly endless desert.

Kisame was going over details of plans with Temari, telling her and Gaara about the threats they should expect from the Akatsuki. More than once, Itachi watched as Temari’s fists balled up at her sides, her worry – so new, still, so fragile – over her brother twisting her face.

“These will help,” Kankuro spoke quietly.

He seemed to be taking his position as head of security seriously, rousing enough guards around the house that his siblings and him lived in to keep even the most untrained civilian safe. The Akatsuki would not, unless desperate beyond what Itachi had ever witnessed, attack anyone but their target. Like a kunai thrown with pinpoint accuracy, they slipped in and hit their target if they could.

If they could not, they withdrew and planned again. “Good,” Itachi turned his gaze back to the papers under his hands. “As well as this,” he pulled out a copy of the escape routes he had planned. “If they attack the village, these routes will get your people to safety.”

Something tense in Kankuro’s shoulders relaxed as he took the map with the routes traced on it, the notes describing landmarks and openings to look for. “Thank you,” he swallowed hard, his hands going tight on the papers for a moment. “This is…” he laughed bitterly. “This is more than we ever expected. I’m just glad you guys are on our side,” he held up the papers. “If we get attacked, I’ll make sure that the villagers get out safely.” He bit his bottom lip his eyes focused on something only he could see. “Do me a favor, okay?”

“If I can,” Itachi nodded. “You’ve harbored us when you had no reason to do so. We owe you at least one favor, in exchange for that. Your brother could have been kept out of the position of Kazekage if your people had found out, if Konoha had found out.”

“Don’t fucking _die_ ,” Kankuro finally looked back up at him. “That’s what you can do for us. You gave me back – gave _us_ back our _family._ With our father dead, we can be sure of contact with Gaara. If we can talk to him, we can keep him from taking a running leap off the deep end. With our father dead, we got our grandmother back. You—” he shook his head, still meeting Itachi’s eyes. “You got us the right family back. Temari used to have migraines all the time, from stress and panic and – and I used to have nightmares about what would happen if Gaara lost control, if Temari and I couldn’t help him in time. If Temari died and left me alone with him.”

His hands trembled as he spoke. “And with just a few actions, you’ve helped _fix it._ ” He took a slow, deep breath, then nodded. “So do me a favor, spooky-eyes, and _don’t fucking die._ I know you’ve got your own little brother out there.”

Sometimes Itachi forgot that Kankuro was younger than him by only a few scant years.

His nineteen years were not that much longer than the sixteen Kankuro claimed. Neither of the elder siblings had ever been able to be children, not in the presence of their father, and sometimes it showed.

“I can make no promises,” Itachi said it softly, dragging Kankuro’s attention back to him. “But I can say I will do my best.” He nodded when Kankuro let out a soft noise of relief. “Kisame will be watching my back and I will be watching his.”

Kankuro’s nose wrinkled, a flash of teenage attitude for just a moment. He grinned, however, and nodded. “And I don’t think he’ll let you get hurt if he can avoid it – yeah, you should be good,” he nodded, then took the notes when Itachi held them out. “We’ll see if we can’t forge a full alliance with Konoha. My father’s rule is over and we’d do well to partner with them.”

With that, as if he were almost embarrassed, Kankuro turned on his heel and headed for his sister.

After a few more moments, Kisame nodded to Temari and Gaara, walking away from them and shouldering his bag. When he stood next to Itachi, he glanced back at the three, glanced at Baki, then hesitated before offering Itachi his hand.

Smiling at him, Itachi took it.

They were being chased down, cornered, but they could do this as long as they were together. He felt certain of that as a truth.

Together, they headed for the path they had been allowed, scaling a wall and disappearing into the darkness of nighttime in the desert. The sand swirled gently in the cool breeze as they walked, shifting over their feet and covering their tracks. When Suna was a speck of light in the distance, after hours of walking, they settled in for the night.

“Well,” Kisame choked out a laugh as he watched their small fire crackle and pop, sparks imitating stars as they floated into the sky. “This again.”

Itachi turned to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Just…I’ve made some promises to myself,” Kisame shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes as his face flushed purple. “About what I’m going to do for you, once this is all over. And…It just seems like it’s never going to be over?” he hesitated, gritting his teeth. “It shouldn’t be like this – you should be comfortable, somewhere, happy and safe and at peace, and you’ve _never_ fucking _had that._ ” He brought his hands up, clenching them into tight fists in the air. “And once this is over, I’m going to make sure you do.”

A flare of fondness rushed through him as he watched Kisame’s face shift, a snarl twisting his mouth. “Kisame,” he leaned forward, letting his hand brush lightly against his arm. When the man didn’t look at him, he huffed quietly. “ _Kisame._ ”

Finally, the shark-like man turned to look at him. “Yeah.” He dropped his gaze to the ground.

“You absolutely incredible man,” Itachi found himself whispering, a feeling building up in his chest that he did his best to tamp down on. If he left his emotions to run free, he would end up crying over how much the man cared for him. He had been at the end of his rope, everything building up over the weeks and months and years of being in service to the Akatsuki – everything had needed to be smothered, needed to be pushed down and away.

Relief and love would bring tears to his eyes if he let them.

Instead, he jerked to his knees and crawled into Kisame’s lap, pressing their foreheads together. His fingers curled in Kisame’s hair, longer than he usually kept it, and tugged gently. After about a week away from the Akatsuki, they had abandoned wearing their forehead protectors, allowing Itachi to do so without an odd clink of metal against metal.

“A peaceful and safe life without you would mean nothing to me,” he nudged their noises together. “As used to war as you are, you deserve peace as well.”

Kisame’s hand, warmed from being held close to the fire, settled on his lower back, holding him close. It felt protective, felt like the closest thing to safety he had experienced since he had been a child. Anyone else might look at Kisame and think he was a monster, but Itachi knew better. He had spent six years learning about the man behind the masks he wore. The dumb thug, the bloodthirsty and vicious monster, all of them were affectations.

Behind them was the wonderful man he had fallen so deeply in love with.

In his own way, perhaps not a ‘genius’ as Itachi had once been labeled, Kisame was brilliant. He understood emotional connections, understood motives without being told. He could predict what Itachi was going to do before he did it, could understand why he did it and could anticipate what he would need from Kisame.

They had developed a language all their own, over the years, and Kisame was the one Itachi wanted to share every part of himself with.

And he believed, firmly and whole-heartedly, that Kisame would need peace as much as he did. A life without constant glances over his shoulder to see where a knife might be coming from. Clearing his name might be next to impossible, but Itachi would see him settled and happy if he could. From what Kisame had said, they wanted the same things for each other.

Safety, peace and warmth, a home.

_Home._

He hadn’t thought of any place as home for a long time – it had been impossible. His family had twisted and tainted the family compound into something approaching a training field, preparing for a war they had wanted to start. The Akatsuki had not been a home, had never been a home, would _never be_ a home. Suna might have been, if they had been in a different time, a different life.

Perhaps home could be a person, instead.

As he curled closer to Kisame, Itachi had to laugh a little. This was their life, right now. On the run, hiding away in the shadows and making a path for whatever village they thought they could hide in. The darkness would cloak them and keep them safe, give them what little safety they could hope for. Kisame was right – it felt an awful amount like the way they had fled from the Akatsuki.

But they had each other.

As long as that was true, as he had often thought before, Itachi was convinced he could do just about anything. With Kisame at his side, he could face down an army with some confidence.

Kisame’s hands curled around him like he was afraid Itachi would disappear if he let go.

He would just have to convince him.

It might take the rest of their lives, but he would convince Kisame he was in their relationship for the long haul. The man’s confidence was perhaps a little rusty, but Itachi would do what he could. This was where he wanted to be, where he wanted to stay.

And nothing in the world would convince him differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...
> 
> Kisame wants Itachi safe and happy, Itachi wants the people he loves and cares about to be safe and happy, and Kankuro is feeling safe enough around his siblings to say that he's scared they're going to be hurt. 
> 
> And now?
> 
> Now we ramp up.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, guess who fell ass-first back into a fandom they left twelve years ago.
> 
> Anyway, here is the first chapter of a fic that is promising to be at least 40K. It's going to be a long one and I hope you guys will enjoy it. I'll try to keep a consistent update schedule, but I suck at that.
> 
> Also: My other stories, if you read those, are currently on hold until I get my external hard drive fixed. I should be able to afford it soon enough, I just got a job.


End file.
